Abstract

On a nation-wide sample of 825 non-ill adults, aged between 14 and 82, with education levels ranging from elementary school to university degree, the Italian version of the Personality Stress Inventory by Grossarth-Maticek and Eysenck has been tried out. All 70 items (with the exception of three) which make up the seven scales (proneness to cancer, heart disease, sociopathy, depression or on the contrary to personal autonomy) are acceptable according to current psychometric criteria. (Alpha coefficients range from 0,70 to 0,83). A factor analysis (six factors extracted and rotated to Varimax criterion) has not confirmed the monodimensionality in all the scales. The optimal scoring method - as an alternative to the a priori integer scoring - is also described, which yielded higher reliability coefficients.