State and Trait Anxiety Scale:
The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, developed by Spielberger and colleagues in 1970 and adapted for the Turkish population by Öner and Le Compte in 1985, is a Likert-type scale that separately measures levels of state and trait anxiety using 20 items. High scores indicate high levels of anxiety, while low scores indicate low levels of anxiety.
Translated into Turkish in 1975 and validated through validity and reliability studies, the scale consists of 20-item scales for state anxiety and trait anxiety. The total score obtained from both scales ranges from 20 to 80. A high score indicates a high level of anxiety, while a low score indicates a low level of anxiety. It is a four-point scale ranging from “Not at all” to “Completely.” The validity and reliability of the inventory in Turkey were established by N. Öner in 1977.
There are two types of items in the State-Trait Anxiety Inventories. Direct items express negative emotions, while reverse-scored items express positive emotions. The reverse-scored items in the State Anxiety Inventory are items 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, and 20.
The reversed items in the State Anxiety Inventory are items 21, 26, 27, 30, 33, 36, and 39. After calculating the total weight scores for the direct and reverse-scored items separately, the total weight score for the reverse-scored items is subtracted from the total weight score obtained for the direct items. A predetermined, fixed value is then added to this number. For the State Anxiety Inventory, this fixed value is 50; for the Trait Anxiety Inventory, it is 35. The final value obtained is the individual’s anxiety score. The State Anxiety Scale (SAS) is a highly sensitive tool for assessing sudden changes in emotional reactions. The State-Trait Anxiety Scale (STAS), which consists of 20 items and is included in the second section of the inventory, aims to measure the general level of anxiety that a person tends to experience in daily life. Scores range from 20 (low anxiety) to 80 (high anxiety).