Distress tolerance scale: Psychometric properties in a Mexican sample and its relationship with perceived stress and age

Introduction and objectives: Distress tolerance is defined as the ability to experience and resist negative psychological states. Recently it has been studied in relation to different psychopathological aspects, but not enough in relation to other non-clinical variables, including age. This research arises due to the growing interest in including distress tolerance in clinical research and the scarcity of studies in Spanish in this regard. The aim of the study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Distress Tolerance Scale in a Mexican sample; and to assess their relationship with perceived stress and compare their scores by age groups. Materials and methods: The study consists of 2 convenience samples, the first of 225 people, with an average age of 34.1 years ( SD = 13.9), 71.6% women and 28.4% men. Sample 2 is composed of 384 university students, with an average age of 19.4 years (SD = 3.1) 73.2% women and 26.8% men. Results: We found adequate values of reliability in both samples. The 4 factor structure with a second order structure was confirmed. The correlations between most of the distress tolerance subscales were significant in both samples, as well as the negative correlation between perceived stress and distress tolerance. The scores were equivalent among the different age groups. Conclusions: It is concluded that this is a scale with adequate psychometric properties and that the Spanish version is suitable to be used in the Mexican population and possibly in the Latin population. (C) 2019 Sociedad Espanola para el Estudio de la Ansiedad y el Estres - SEAS. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. All rights reserved.