Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The nature of naval member’s job demands is that they experience high levels of stress. Stress is introduced in military training to familiarize sailors with real life stressors. This study is located in piloting and validity theory. It focuses explicitly on validating an existing tool, the Therapeutic Recreation Stress Leisure Appraisal Tool, to measure stress in the South African Navy. This study aimed to pilot and evaluate the validity and reliability of the developed tool in an African context in the South African Navy. A multi-stage procedure of instrument development using the instrument development model will be used, consisting of the following steps: 1) preliminary phase, 2) questionnaire development, 3) pilot testing, and 4) evaluation.