Validation of the Wallston s Personal Competence Scale and its implication for stress research

Studied the validitiy of the Spanish version of the Personal Competence Scale (K. E. Wallston, 1992). Human Ss: 179 normal male and female Spanish adults (mean age 20.4 yrs) (university students). Data on sociodemographic variables, personal competence, efficacy, locus of control, and psychological symptoms were obtained by questionnaire. The results were evaluated according to sex; scores on personal competency, inefficacy, locus of control, symptom severity, and positive and negative symptoms scales; and symptoms of anxiety, depression, hostility, interpersonal sensitivity, obsessive–compulsive disorder, paranoid ideation, phobic anxiety, psychosis, and somatization. Tests used: The Locus of Control Scale (J. B. Rotter, 1975), the SCL-90—R, and the perfectionism and inefficacy subscales of the Eating Disorder Inventory. Statistical tests were used.