The survey, developed in the 1960s, is utilized to assess the relative levels of stress caused by various common life events. These events may include the loss of a partner, alterations in financial or social situations, and the occurrence of serious illness.
On this scale, each potentially stressful event is assigned a specific score, with the death of a partner receiving the highest score (100), and other stressors ranked accordingly based on their scores. When individuals take the test, they select all the applicable stressful events from the scale and then sum up the scores of these stressors to calculate their overall stress level.