Stress-related social events and psychological impairment

Abstract

PROBLEMThis study investigated the relationship between stress-related social events and psychological impairment. Other researchers@) have suggested that there are both qualitative and quantitative relationships between stress-related social events and psychiatric impairment. Beisser and Glasser ( l ) found that marital and occupational stress accounted for more than two-thirds of admissions to mental hospitals. These findings parallel those of Gurin, et al., (2), who surveyed a general population and found the major types of situations that create "worry" t o be economic or occupational. Those persons who sought help did so primarily because of marital and interpersonal problems.A recently developed instrument in psychosomatic research provides a precise means to investigate the temporal aspects and differential impact of various events on a person's life. Holmes and Rahe, et al. (3* 4 , 6 , 7 , describe the Schedule of Recent Experience (SRE) to record the chronology of life change events and the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) to quantify the amount of readjustment required by these events. They found certain events that clustered 12 to 24 months prior to the onset of physical disease that also were related to the severity of illness. With the SRE as our basic research instrument, it was hypothesized that there would be a direct relationship between the number of events experienced, when experienced, and weightings to the degree of psychological impairment. METHOD Subjects.Patients who entered one unit of a state mental hospital were screened by a psychiatric social worker to determine their suitability as Ss. Patients who were incapable of responding, who were deemed uncooperative, and/or who had been in a state hospital for more than 3 months in the preceding year were excluded. All others (N = 50) were interviewed individually by a trained interviewer. Of the 50 inpatients interviewed, 25 were male and 6 were nonwhite. The majority of patients were from low socioeconomic rural backgrounds. Over 66% had less than a high-school education. The ages of the respondents ranged from 20 to 70, mean 43.2.Procedures. The patients were seen within 14 days of their admission to the hospital inpatient wards. Each S was verbally presented the items from a modified form of the Schedule of Recent Experiences (SRE) by a trained interviewer and asked to indicate whether each of the 45 events on the scale had been experienced. If the respondent had experienced the event, it was ascertained within each of the following categories when it was experienced and how many times it happened:(1) 0 to 6 months; (2) 6 months to 1 year; (3) 1 to 2 years; (4) 2 to 3 years; and ( 5 ) more than 3 years ago, The information thus provided a picture of the kind, number, and period of occurrence of life changes for each patient.The analysis of the data utilized four basic measures from the SRE. These were (1) number of different events experienced, (2) number of times the event was experienced, (3) weighting of the event, and (4) time ...

Life events and psychopathology severity: Comparisons between psychiatric outpatients and inpatients

“…Life events, therefore, have been conceptualized as contributing to the stress that leads to psychopathology. However, most relationships between life events and pathology have been found in largely neurotic outpatient samples, while most studies with inpatients (Aponte & Miller, 1972;Lahniers & White, 1976;Ulenhuth & Paykel, 1973) have found small or no relationships.…”

A prospective and retrospective study of attributional style, perceptions of control, social support, and the life events-illness relationship

“…Aponte and Miller (1972) found no significant correlation between the number and severity of symptoms and scores from the SRE. Garrity, Marx, and Somes (1978) collected correlations between behavioral pathology and life events prior to and after the events occurred.…”

A prospective and retrospective study of attributional style, perceptions of control, social support, and the life events-illness relationship

“…The above results tend to support a significant relationship between life stress and future illness; however, other investigators found negative results using retrospective designs. Aponte and Miller (1972) found no significant correlation between the number and severity of symptoms and scores from the SRE. Garrity, Marx, and Somes (1978) collected correlations between behavioral pathology and life events prior to and after the events occurred.…”