Development and validation of a short-form version of the Brazilian state-trait anxiety inventory

Abstract

The Brazilian State-Trait Anxiety Inventory has been widely used to measure state (STAI-S) and trait (STAI-T) components of anxiety. The present work developed and evaluated a short version of the STAI-S and STAI-T in a large sample of Brazilian subjects. The first study selected short-form scales. The second one employed factor analyses to investigate whether each of the two short-form scales presented a well-defined and balanced structure with both anxiety-present and anxiety-absent factors. Results indicated that the STAI-S and STAI-T could be reduced to six items (STAI-S-6 and STAI-T-6, respectively) without sacrificing their psychometric properties. The findings suggest that STAI-S-6 and STAI-T-6 may be employed in situations where time restraints make the use of full-length forms unfeasible.