The development of the Survey of Adolescent Stress Issues (SASI) and its correlation with personality style in a normal and a clinical population

In a series of studies, 525 junior and senior high school subjects were surveyed in order to develop an instrument to assess stress levels in adolescents. The Survey of Adolescent Stress Issues (SASI) is the 62-item questionnaire that resulted from these studies. In the principle study, this survey was given to a clinical population of 70 adolescents and a normal population of 101 adolescents in order to compare these two groups\u27 general levels of stress as well as to compare them along seven defined areas of stress labeled: (1) Responsibility: Now and Future, (2) Parents, (3) Siblings, (4) Academics, (5) Peers, (6) Appearance/Identity, and (7) Romance. In addition, the Millon Adolescent Personality Inventory (MAPI) was given to both groups in order to assess if different personality styles would report coping better or worse with these particular categories of stress and if the normal and clinical populations would differ significantly in their ratings Finally, a companion Clinician\u27s Rating Scale (CRS) was given to the therapist\u27s of the clinical subjects in order to compare the clinicians\u27 assessments of the subjects\u27 stress on the SASI and its Seven Scales with the subjects\u27 own ratings. Results were as follows: (1) normal and clinical subjects received significantly different scores on the total SASI suggesting that the SASI is sensitive to normal and clinical levels of stress, (2) different personality styles demonstrated significantly different ratings on both the total SASI score as well as on particular areas of stress but only if they were defined as belonging to a clinical population, (3) while the CRS was found to correlate highly with the subjects\u27 score on the total SASI, it evidenced some difficulty in correlating with the Seven Scales of the SASI, and (4) multiple regression analysis of some of the demographic variables suggested that sex, race, and age might differentially effect scoring on the SASI