BACKGROUND In the last decade academic stress and its mental health implications amongst university students has become a global topic. The use of valid and theoretically-grounded measures of academic stress in university settings is crucial. The aim of this study was to examine the factorial structure, reliability and measurement invariance of the short student version of the effort-reward imbalance questionnaire (ERI-SQ). METHODS A total of 6448 Italian university students participated in an online cross-sectional survey. The factorial structure was investigated using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, the measurement invariance of the ERI-SQ was investigated. RESULTS Results from explorative and confirmatory factor analyses showed acceptable fits for the Italian version of the ERI-SQ. A modified version of 12 items showed the best fit to the data confirming the 3-factor model. Moreover, multigroup analyses showed metric invariance across gender and university course (health vs other courses). CONCLUSIONS In sum, our results suggest that the ERI-SQ is a valid, reliable and robust instrument for the measurement of stress among Italian university students.

中文翻译：

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大学生的压力：努力-奖励失衡学生问卷的意大利语版的析因结构和度量不变性。

背景技术在过去的十年中，大学生中的学习压力及其对心理健康的影响已成为全球性的话题。在大学环境中使用有效且具有理论基础的学术压力衡量指标至关重要。这项研究的目的是检查努力回报失衡问卷（ERI-SQ）的简短学生版的阶乘结构，可靠性和度量不变性。方法共有6448名意大利大学生参加了在线横截面调查。使用探索性因素分析和确认性因素分析研究了析因结构。最后，研究了ERI-SQ的测量不变性。结果探索性和验证性因素分析的结果表明，意大利版本的ERI-SQ可以接受。修改后的12个项目显示出最适合该数据的数据，从而确认了三因素模型。此外，多组分析显示了性别和大学课程（健康与其他课程）之间的度量不变性。结论总之，我们的结果表明ERI-SQ是一种有效，可靠和强大的工具，可用于衡量意大利大学生的压力。