Perceived Stress Scale

PSS-10 — 10 questions — ~3 min

A short questionnaire on how stressful life has felt over the past month. Fill it in together in session, or send it to a client to complete at home.

Before you start

These questions ask about your feelings and thoughts during the last month. For each one, choose how often you felt or thought that way. Try not to count — just pick what seems closest.

Answers stay on this device and aren't saved anywhere.

Send to a client

Your client fills it in at home, from a private link with your name and logo. Results are scored and saved to your account, so you can track them over time.

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About the PSS-10

The Perceived Stress Scale measures how stressful a person has found their life over the past month — how unpredictable, uncontrollable and overloading it has felt.

Unlike the depression and anxiety questionnaires, it isn’t about a disorder. It’s a measure of how stress is being experienced, which makes it useful for general wellbeing work and for tracking change.

Questions: 10
Time: About 3 minutes
Covers: Past month
Score range: 0–40

How it’s scored

Each answer scores from 0 (never) to 4 (very often). Four questions are about coping well — such as feeling on top of things — and are scored in reverse. The total runs from 0 to 40; higher means more perceived stress.

The scale’s authors didn’t set official cut-offs; scores were meant to be compared with norms for similar groups. The low, moderate and high ranges below are a widely used convention, not part of the original scale.

PSS-10 score ranges
Score	Severity
0–13	Low stress
14–26	Moderate stress
27–40	High stress

Good to know

It isn’t a diagnostic tool, and a high score doesn’t mean a mental health problem.
It reflects a person’s own sense of stress, which can change quickly with life events.
It doesn’t ask about mood or risk. If there are signs of low mood, follow up with a depression measure and your usual risk assessment.
It’s free for non-profit academic and educational use.

Source