Should we worry about how we measure worry? Insights from an updated version of the Italian Penn State Worry Questionnaire
Worry, when it takes on pathological features, represents one of the main factors involved in the development and maintenance of anxiety-related psychopathologies. For this reason, worry constitutes a crucial target for cognitive-behavioural psychological interventions, both in preventive contexts and in the presence of clinically significant psychopathology.
In this framework, the availability of up-to-date and culturally validated psychometric instruments for the assessment of worry is essential.
This study conducted a rigorous revision of the Italian version of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), one of the most widely used instruments for evaluating worry in both clinical and research settings. The most recent Italian normative data available prior to this study dated back to 1999.
Adopting an integrated approach that combines Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT), the study not only confirmed the validity of the 11-item abbreviated version (PSWQ-11), but also provided a deeper understanding of item functioning and individuals' locations within the Italian general population.
A comparison between two non-clinical samples recruited approximately ten years apart revealed some changes in how worry is manifested and perceived over time. For example, aspects of worry that, a decade ago, were considered more typical of clinical contexts—such as its intensity and persistence—now appear to be perceived as more common or even as part of everyday normality. These findings align with previous research documenting a rise in worry levels over the past twenty years, a trend that has been linked to global crises, rapid technological development, and hyperconnectivity, which exposes individuals to a continuous stream of real-time information (Carleton et al., 2019; Davey et al., 2022).
The results underscore the importance of periodically updating normative data for psychological tests—particularly for constructs such as worry, which are sensitive to socio-cultural and historical changes and frequently used to monitor the effectiveness of psychological interventions. Moreover, the publication of normative data in an accessible format contributes to the ongoing debate on transparency in psychometric norms, a topic increasingly central to ensuring the quality, replicability, and practical utility of psychological assessment tools in both clinical practice and scientific research.
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1697260025000377
Bottesi, G., & Spoto, A. (2025). Should we worry about how we measure worry? Insights from an updated version of the Italian Penn State Worry Questionnaire. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 25(2), 100579. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2025.100579
