Introduction:

stress is a contemporary phenomenon that affects students of Higher Education. There are no validated instruments in the Cuban context for its correct assessment.

Objective:

to establish the psychometric properties as a function of the reliability and construct validity of the Perceived Stress Scale in medical students of Pinar del Rio province in 2017.

Methods:

descriptive, cross-sectional, technological evaluation study carried out with medical students from Pinar del Rio University of Medical Sciences during 2017. A sample of 400 students from the sixth academic year of medicine studies was chosen. The application of the Perceived Stress Scale allowed obtaining information for subsequent validation in the Cuban context.

Results:

high values (0.84) of Cronbach's Alpha were obtained, which demonstrated reliability in the test. Factor analysis obtained two dimensions or factors, achieving adequate correlations between the items belonging to each factor.

Conclusions:

the Perceived Stress Scale presented adequate metric qualities when validated in the Cuban context, proving to be reliable and with a bi-factor structure in correspondence with what was stated by its original authors. Using this instrument it is possible to determine the influence of stress in the teaching process, and the academic results of the students; as well as how the teaching staff can be linked to the perception of stress by the students.

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