In beginning to ask individuals to participate in this study, the primary researcher
was impressed with how open and willing each participant was to participate. Each
participant seemed interested in wanting to provide this writer with as much feedback as possible. First, participant’s scores of the CPSS were calculated and compared to the
“norm” score. Participants’ total scores varied from 7 being the lowest score and 30
being the highest score. Participant One’s total score was 30, participant Two’s total
score was 7, participant Three’s total score was 19, participant Four’s total score was 21
and participant Five’s total score was 19. The mean of all the scores was 19.2. As the
creators of the CPSS indicated that a typical stress rating is about a 13, this indicates that
the average of scores from these participants have a higher perceived stress level then the
“norm”. Figure 1, below, demonstrates this visually. Participants are listed as
participants One is ‘P 1’, participant Two is ‘P 2” and so on. Each participant is listed in
figure 1 comparing each individual’s CPSS score with the duration of time the individual
has been participating in counseling services by number of months.