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Stressful Life Events: A Revision and Update of the Social Readjustment Rating Scale
Abstract
The widely used and cited Social Readjustment Rating Scale developed by Holmes and Rahe (1967) was comprehensively revised and updated. The new instrument, containing 51 major life events, was administered to a national sample of 5000. Respondents were asked to rate the stressfulness of each life event on a 1–100 scale. Completed surveys were returned by 3122 individuals (62.4%). Responses were analyzed using repeated measures MANOVA and profile analysis. Major results included: (a) statistically and practically significant differences in mean ratings for the 51 life events; (b) five overlapping themes in the top 20 rated life events—death and dying, healthcare, crime and the criminal justice system, financial/economic issues, and family-related issues; and (c) an amazing level of agreement concerning perceived life event stressfulness, regardless of gender, age, or income level.
... However, populations with lower socioeconomic status are more vulnerable to adverse life events [5]. Negative stressful events in the social and family networks, such as the loss of a friend or family member, are some of the most stressful and difficult for individuals to adapt to and have the highest impact on health and wellbeing [6]. ...
... The prompt included the range of stressful life events from the Holmes and Rahe scale [35]. This scale is one of the most widely used scales for assessing stressful life events [6]; however, it lacks specific events important for historically marginalized groups. To mitigate this issue, we added some examples of these events identified during our recent scoping review [4]. ...
... For example, one study has found that suggestion of a friend or a family member was important in the decision to get screened [40]. However, in our sample, marriage also had a negative, [6]. ...
Background
Increase in early onset colorectal cancer makes adherence to screening a significant public health concern, with various social determinants playing a crucial role in its incidence, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. Stressful life events, such as divorce, marriage, or sudden loss of job, have a unique position among the social determinants of health.
Methods
We applied a large language model (LLM) to social history sections of clinical notes in the health records database of the Medical University of South Carolina to extract recent stressful life events and assess their impact on colorectal cancer screening adherence. We used pattern-matching regular expressions to detect a possible signal in social histories and ran LLM four times on each social history to achieve self-consistency and then used logistic regression to estimate the impact of life events on the probability of having a code in health records related to colorectal cancer screening.
Results
The LLM detected 380 patients with one or more stressful life events and 5,344 patients with no life events. The events with the most negative impact on screening were arrest or incarceration (OR 0.26 95% CI 0.06–0.77), becoming homeless (OR 0.18 95% CI 0.01–0.92), separation from spouse or partner (OR 0.32 95% CI 0.05–1.18), getting married or starting to live with a partner (OR 0.60 95% CI 0.19–1.53). Death of somebody close to the patient (excluding their spouse) increased the chance of screening (OR 1.21 95% CI 0.71–2.05). Many of the observed effects did not reach statistical significance.
Conclusion
Our findings suggest that stressful life events might have a counterintuitive impact on screening, with some events, such as bereavement, were associated with increased screening. Future work should be focused on validating the research findings using data from other health institutions. In addition, expanding the list of stressful life events by including a validated scale of stressful life events for patients from historically marginalized groups is warranted.
... In measuring a subjective phenomenon such as reported levels of stress, it was important to utilize an instrument that reflected common stressors. The 51 items on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale -Revised (SRRS-R) (Hobson, Kamen, Szostek, Nethercut, Tiedmann, & Wojnarowicz, 1998) encompassed five themes from which stress arose, leading with death and dying, healthcare issues, crime and involvement with the criminal justice system, financial/economic issues, and family related issues (Hobson et al., 1998). These themes are reflected in previous research indicating that women who do not successfully persist in online education usually leave programs for family, health or financial reasons (Johnson et al., 2000;Park & Hee Jun, 2009). ...
... In measuring a subjective phenomenon such as reported levels of stress, it was important to utilize an instrument that reflected common stressors. The 51 items on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale -Revised (SRRS-R) (Hobson, Kamen, Szostek, Nethercut, Tiedmann, & Wojnarowicz, 1998) encompassed five themes from which stress arose, leading with death and dying, healthcare issues, crime and involvement with the criminal justice system, financial/economic issues, and family related issues (Hobson et al., 1998). These themes are reflected in previous research indicating that women who do not successfully persist in online education usually leave programs for family, health or financial reasons (Johnson et al., 2000;Park & Hee Jun, 2009). ...
... Although gender had a statistically significant impact on how life events were perceived and there was support of the contamination hypothesis, neither of these affected the practical use of the SRRS-R instrument to assess levels of stress (Hobson et al., 1998;Scully, Tosi, & Banning, 2000). In evaluating levels of stress in female students, Gadzella and Carvalho (2006) reported that women who identified their stress at a particular level, either mild, moderate or severe, were found to mirror their self report by scoring at the same level on the Student-Life Stress Inventory, indicating that women's perceptions of their stress accurately represented their lived experiences with stressors. ...
This quantitative study was designed to investigate the differences in stressors and demographic variables of women enrolled in an online master's degree program in education. Participants were women with multiple personal, career, and family responsibilities. Survey data and demographic data were used to identify which stressors were most frequently experienced and whether there was a significant difference between stress scale scores and demographic variables. Seven hundred and fifty women completed the Social Readjustment Rating Scale — Revised (Hobson, 1998) and non-parametric tests were used to analyze the data. Findings indicated the stressors most common to female graduate students were related to family, finances, and health-related issues. The results also suggested there were significant differences among the demographic variables of age, ethnicity, program start date, number of courses completed, and marital status.For institutions of higher education these findings may offer insight for incorporating student services such as learning communities, flexible financing options, and accelerated programs to allow for increased retention of women in online programs. For women seeking to enroll into an online graduate program, this study may provide insight into assessing their resources for successful completion of an online master's degree
... For example Komaroff and colleagues [25] substituted "marital reconciliation with spouse" with "getting back together" as it was more meaningful to the target population. Hobson and colleagues [14,15] addressed sample and content criticisms of the original SRRS with an extended, modified "Social Readjustment Rating Scale Revised" (SRRS-R). To address the SRRS' outdated and insufficiently representative sample the SRRS-R was based on norms derived from a larger sample (n = 3122), representative of a cross-section of Americans regarding age, race, gender, ethnicity, income and geographical location. ...
... "Mortgage or loan greater than $10,000"). Using their extended, modified scale, Hobson et al. [14] found that there were significant differences in the way individuals evaluated the stressfulness of different events. On this basis they concluded that using simple unitary weights (occurred vs. not occurred) risked masking these differences and that further work needs to assess the impact of using group-based weights vs. individually derived weights vs. unit weights. ...
The Social Readjustment Rating Scale, originally devised in 1967 by Holmes and Rahe, measures the impact of life events stress. At the time, the SRRS advanced its field of research by standardising the impact of stress with a set of independently derived weights called ‘life change units’ (LCUs) for 43 life events found to predict illness onset. The scale has been criticised for being outdated, e.g. “Mortgage over $10,000” and biased, e.g. “Wife begin or stop work”. The aim of this cross-sectional survey study is to update and improve the SRRS whilst allowing backwards compatibility. We successfully updated the SRRS norms/LCUs using the ratings of 540 predominantly UK adults aged 18 to 84. Moreover, we also updated wording of 12 SRRS items and evaluated the impact of demographics, personal experience and loneliness. Using non-parametric frequentist and Bayesian statistics we found that the updated weights were higher but broadly consistent with those of the original study. Furthermore, changes to item wording did not affect raters’ evaluations relative to the original thereby ensuring cross-comparability with the original SRRS. The raters were not unduly influenced by their personal experiences of events nor loneliness. The target sample was UK rather than US-based and was proportionately representative regarding age, sex and ethnicity. Moreover, the age range was broader than the original SRRS. In addition, we modernised item wording, added one optional extra item to the end of the scale to evaluate the readjustment to living alone and identified 3 potential new items proposed by raters. Backwards-compatibility is maintained.
... In Block 5, the following data is collected: age of the respondent at the moment of the event, the timeline of the event, and specific features, allowing to categorize this event as critical (Holmes and Rahe, 1967;Hobson et al., 1998;Habermas and Bluck, 2000). ...
... To find the categories of life to which the experiences that occurred belong, the taxonomy developed by Holmes and Rahe (1967) and adjusted by Hobson et al. (1998) and Haimson et al. (2021) is used. Based on the condensed description of the experiences obtained earlier, each experience is connected to one or several categories. ...
Introduction
The paper examines the psychological facet of innocent suffering. One can find a description of this phenomenon in social psychology as a factor that affects the belief in a just world, but there is a lack of qualitative scientific data about related psychological features, processes, copings, and consequences on the personality level.
Methods
To study innocent suffering, semi-structured in-depth interview was conducted (31 respondents, ~223 minutes per respondent, 6,924 min in total) aimed to gather data about the experiences of innocent sufferings happened to participants. For the analysis of texts, a narrative and content analysis are used within the framework of grounded theory. The reliability of the results is based on expert assessment.
Results and discussion
As a result, six essential properties of innocent sufferings were identified: complexity, stability, distress, injustice, casual incoherence, and breaks of integrity of a life story. The most “popular” life domains, in which participants reported about innocent sufferings, are violence, abuse (physical and psychological), and quitting romantic relationships. It is proposed a scientific definition of innocent suffering and the prototype of the phenomenon.
... A 7-point Likert scale that ranged from daily (1) to never (7) was used to measure participants' perceived frequency of contact with clients experiencing psychological distress associated with specific negative life stressors (e.g. family violence), the latter drawn from the revised Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Hobson et al., 1998). ...
... McGrath, Parnell, Verdon, and Pope (2022a, 2022b) also reported that physiotherapists perceived client psychological distress to be varied with regard to the circumstances in which the distress emerged. The current study found that most respondents had encountered a client experiencing psychological distress related, at least in part, to 10 of the 13 types of stressors drawn from the revised Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Hobson et al., 1998). For example, over half of respondents (56.1%) reported encountering a client experiencing psychological distress related to domestic violence/sexual abuse at least once a year. ...
Background:
Previous research suggests physiotherapists' perceived frequency of contact with clients experiencing psychological distress is common; however, there is significant variation in the frequency of such contact.
Objective:
The study aimed to 1) investigate Australian physiotherapists' perceived frequency of contact with clients experiencing various forms of psychological distress; 2) identify potential factors that predict perceived frequency of contact; and 3) explore physiotherapists' beliefs regarding their role and self-reported capability to identify and assess psychological distress.
Methods:
A nationwide online survey of 340 Australian physiotherapists was conducted, and the data were analyzed using descriptive analysis and regression analysis.
Results:
Physiotherapists' perceived frequencies of contact with psychologically distressed and severely distressed clients expressed as proportions of all clients seen each week were 36.1% and 15.6%, respectively. Factors related to the clinical setting were stronger predictors of the perceived frequency of contact (Cohen's f2 = 0.16) than factors related to the physiotherapists themselves (Cohen's f2 = 0.03). Despite believing that identifying psychological distress was within their scope of practice, the physiotherapists in the study felt that assessing and managing this distress fell outside or on the boundary of their scope of practice.
Conclusion:
Australian physiotherapists frequently encounter clients they perceive to be experiencing psychological distress. Future research into physiotherapists' capability to assess and respond to client psychological distress, using non-self-reported measures, is required.
... In covering the general population, developmental psychologists have conceptualized major private life events as time-stamped transi-individuals (Hobson et al., 1998;Norbeck, 1984). To the extent that CEOs also experience major private life events that could shape their preferences and choices (Hambrick & Mason, 1984), but are in a unique position to exert disproportionate influence on the fate of entire organizations (Mackey, 2008;Quigley & Hambrick, 2015) and other key organizational members (Bromiley & Rau, 2016;Georgakakis et al., 2019;Simsek, Heavey & Fox, 2018), CEO private life events may become reflected in strategic leadership outcomes of theoretical interest (Samimi et al., 2022). ...
... Conceptually, life events have been captured primarily from two main theoretical angles embedded in the broader social psychological tradition (Gergen & Gergen, 2014): a stress perspective and a developmental perspective (Luhmann et al., 2012). The first perspective is concerned with overcoming stressful events (Ganster & Rosen, 2013), which mark non-trivial turning points in (habitual) behavioral patterns (Hobson et al., 1998). Indeed, Sarason et al. (1978) noted early on that life events are changes in a person's life that require "adaptation on the part of the individual and are stressful" (p. ...
Major events in the private lives of CEOs have been a source of fascination for decades. However, despite gaining traction, studies on the relevant phenomena (e.g., marriage, divorce, parenthood, illness) remain scattered in parallel across disciplines. We thematically review the interdisciplinary evidence on the fast-emerging literature on CEO private life events (72 unique studies) to consolidate our understanding of how private life events can become reflected in the professional domains of CEO influence. Through this approach, we comprehensively intersect empirical progress on CEO life events with key strategic leadership outcomes (i.e., performance, strategy, socio-ethical issues, innovation, governance), allowing us to identify key gaps and highlight inconsistencies. We then propose several research opportunities and challenges to move the field from phenomenon-driven standalone studies to a more coherent research program on the blurred boundaries between the private and professional lives of CEOs.
... Consequently, it is a period of multiple potentially stressful transitions and events. For most people, such periods of transition often exacerbate mental health struggles [55]. Thus, the present study has several specific aims: First, based on responses to a survey assessing mental health and well-being, we assess the number of latent profiles that best characterize mental well-being within our national sample. ...
... Conversely, the lower mental well-being class showed greater variability in their average scores across items. We additionally evaluated latent profiles examining only the 8 items from mental well-being subscale [55], dropping the self-report mental health item. Results showed essentially the same two profiles. ...
Graduate students’ mental health and well-being is a prominent concern across various disciplines. However, early predictors of mental health and well-being in graduate education, specifically doctoral education, have rarely been studied. The present study evaluated both the underlying latent classification of individuals’ mental well-being and predictors of those classifications. Results estimated two latent classes of students’ mental health and well-being: one class with generally high levels of mental well-being and one with lower levels of mental well-being. Regression analyses showed that mentoring in the second year of doctoral study, certainty of choice in the third year, and both academic development and sense of belonging in the fourth year were positive predictors of membership in the higher mental well-being class. In contrast to some prior studies, demographic variables were not related to the identified well-being classifications. Regression analyses further showed that mental well-being was negatively related to participants’ number of publications and research self-efficacy, indicating a problematic relationship between scholarly productivity and confidence and well-being. These findings may be used to identify and provide targeted support for students who are at-risk for having or developing lower levels of mental well-being in their graduate programs.
... The participants reported barriers to achieving behavioral goals during behavioral follow-up sessions; at posttest, they listed life events that affected diabetes self-care using the Recent Life Event Questionnaire [35]. ...
... Consistent with previous DSMES programs in underserved communities, participants achieved 4.1% weight loss at 3 months. Participants also maintained good glycemic control at 3 months, similar to previous short-term mHealth-based DSMES interventions [35,36]. While a meta-analysis reported a 0.4% HbA 1c reduction after mHealth interventions in persons with diabetes, these studies were conducted in persons with diabetes with poor baseline HbA 1c and had longer study durations [37]. ...
Background:
Latinos living in rural South Texas have a higher prevalence of diabetes, but their access to diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) is limited.
Objective:
We aimed to test the feasibility of a community health worker-led, mobile health (mHealth)-based DSMES intervention to reduce disparities in accessing DSMES in underserved rural Latino residents in South Texas.
Methods:
This 12-week, single-arm, pre-post trial was delivered by trained community health workers to 15 adults with type 2 diabetes. The intervention consisted of digital diabetes education, self-monitoring, a cloud-based connected platform, and community health worker support. Feasibility was evaluated as retention, actual intervention use, program satisfaction, and barriers to implementation. We also explored the intervention's effect on weight loss and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c).
Results:
All 15 participants were Latino (mean age 61.87 years, SD 10.67; 9/15 female, 60%). The retention rate at posttest was 14 of 15 (93%). On average, the participants completed 37 of 42 (88%) digital diabetes education lessons with 8 participants completing all lessons. Participants spent 81/91 days (89%) step tracking, 71/91 days (78%) food logging, 43/91 days (47%) blood glucose self-monitoring, and 74/91 days (81%) weight self-monitoring. The level of program satisfaction was high. On average, participants lost 3.5 (SD 3.2) kg of body weight (P=.001), while HbA1c level remained unchanged from baseline (6.91%, SD 1.28%) to posttest (7.04%, SD 1.66%; P=.668).
Conclusions:
A community health worker-led mHealth-based intervention was feasible and acceptable to improve access to DSMES services for Latino adults living in rural communities. Future randomized controlled trials are needed to test intervention efficacy on weight loss and glycemic control.
... Life stress is caused by adverse social-environmental experiences, which include economic circumstances, physical health, mental states, and social relationships (36). Stressful life events are defined as transitions that prompt a need to readjust the daily life routine, especially emotional and physical readjustment, and include events, such as death and dying, and issues related to healthcare, finances, and family (15,35,38). Furthermore, stressful life events for older people include social losses, illnesses, changes in social roles, and changes in daily life patterns (15). ...
... Social readjustment rating scale measures the required social life adjustments associated with various life events, including some undesirable ones that are regarded as stressors (40). Research based on the social readjustment rating scale has shown a significant association between exposure to stressful life events and stress-related symptoms (37,38,41). However, in some studies, stressful life events have been shown to be causally associated with depression, and even early exposure to life stress can predict depression in later life (39,42,43). ...
Aim: This study analyzes the effects of retrospective stressful life events on current depression among Chinese older people and how these effects are moderated by social support. Stressful life events comprise bereavement, divorce, health adversities, accidents, and financial losses due to fraud.
Data and Method: Data were drawn from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) of the 2015 panel, and responses from 9,619 older people aged over 60 years were used. The least-squares regression method was applied to measure the linear effects. Propensity score matching minimized selection bias and enabled the measurement of the net effects of stressful life events. The bias-corrected matching estimator was also used to correct the inexact matching bias from propensity score matching.
Result: Experienced stressful life events and exposure to cumulative stressful life events were found to lead to depression in older people. When older people experienced stressful life events but with more social activities, and higher satisfaction and frequent contact with children, their depressive levels were lower. The results of the propensity score matching showed that stressful life events resulted in depression in older people. Furthermore, individuals with family support were able to moderate stressful life events effects; however, the moderating effects of social activity separately were negligible. In sum, with the moderating role of family support and social activity, the average differences in older people depression caused by stressful life events decreased.
Conclusion: Experiencing stressful life events is detrimental to the psychological health of the older people. Social support, including family support and social activity, has buffered detrimental effects on depression caused by stressful life events.
Interpretations: The study underscores the need to supply effective interventions for the older people who experienced stressful life events. First, society should improve the capability of community care centers to supply mental health services. Second, family members should pay attention to mental condition of older people, and specific support should concord with the needs of Chinese older people. In addition, support suppliers can move from being confined to kinship relationships to close relationships, such as the community partners and neighbors.
... The newly created Adjustment Scale, which was adapted from the SCID (First et al., 1997) and the M.I.N.I. (Sheehan et al., 1998), had a Cronbach's alpha of .45 in the current sample. Because of such low Cronbach's Hobson et al., 1998), a measure of stressful events that has been linked to making people vulnerable to illness (Holmes & Rahe, 1967). Point values have been assigned to events and a stress score is obtained by totaling the point values associated with the events the participant has experienced over the past year. ...
Plain language summary
What makes an international student in the U.S. have less psychological distress?
We wanted to identify which among these factors: stress, socio-economic levels, and acculturation are most important in decreasing the psychological distress of international college students attending American universities. We surveyed two groups of college students from three universities in the southeastern United States: those who were born in the U.S. and those who were born internationally and came to the U.S. to study. Both groups of students were asked to respond to questionnaires about their demographic data, their levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and the symptoms they are experiencing. Additionally, their acculturation to both their country of origin and the U.S., including their identity, and cultural and language competencies were surveyed. Among international students, those who have lower levels of stress and who have higher acculturation towards the U.S. (who identity with the U.S., and speak English) are most likely to have less anxiety. Moreover, the international students who are competent in their own culture of origin and culture of origin language are also competent in the U.S. culture and also in the U.S. language. These results inform higher education institutions on services for international students especially those pertaining to lowering levels of stress. Additionally, efforts of universities to support international students in using their own language and identifying with their culture of origin are as important as identifying with the U.S. and speaking English. This research gathered survey data at only one point of time, and only to a limited number of international students.
... In combination, Studies 1, 2, and 3 provide convergent evidence for the claim that unstable life circumstances might be a developmental antecedent of the SIM (see Table 5 for a summary). (Hobson et al., 1998), SRRS (Holmes & Rahe, 1967), β = standardized regression weights. *p < .05, ...
The self-insight motive (SIM; also known under the label self-assessment motive) describes the dispositional tendency to strive for accurate self-knowledge. The current research includes five multimethodological studies (total N = 3667) that comprehensively investigated the SIM’s nomological network, its antecedents, and cognitive-behavioral consequences, comprising longitudinal, round-robin, and population-representative data. Among the personality correlates of the SIM were curiosity, the intimacy and self-improvement motives, private self-consciousness, narcissistic admiration, and openness to experience. Further, the SIM was more pronounced among younger and highly educated people. A key environmental antecedent of the SIM was the instability of life circumstances, in the sense that the motive became stronger after life circumstances had changed. Concerning the cognitive-behavioral consequences, the results suggest that the SIM fosters feedback-seeking behavior. Nevertheless, the motive was not linked to more accurate self-perception across three studies. We discuss several reasons for this unexpected finding.
... Experiences. An adapted version of the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS; Hobson et al., 1998) was used at follow-up (A3) to assess stressful life experiences (0 = ''no''; 1 = ''yes'') between the baseline and follow-up assessments (i.e., within the previous 21 months). The original 51 stressful experiences were extended with nine additional stressors to account for age-specific stressors (e.g., loneliness, moving into a nursing home) (Ho¨ltge et al., 2021). ...
Plain language summary
Older age is characterised by its vast disparity in health. There exists a wide array of empirical literature on factors linked to this health disparity. While differing levels of early-life adversity (ELA) and recent stress are potentially explanatory factors, their role in later life is insufficiently understood. This study examined the health disparity of older individuals with differing levels of ELA and recent stressful experiences, as well as the type of the expected stress-health relationships. More specifically, this study examined, whether the relationships between stress and health follow a linear or a curvilinear fashion. A longitudinal quantitative study has been conducted in Switzerland to collected data on health, ELA, and stressful life experiences of the previous 21 months in 216 participants. The participants had a mean age of 69.8 years and were 45.8% female. The findings of this study support linear (rather than curvilinear) stress-health relationships for ELA and recent stress with physical and mental health. Furthermore, ELA significantly acted as a moderator in the relationship between recent stress and physical illnesses. As the detrimental health impact of ELA can still be detected in older adulthood, ELA may be critical for understanding later life health heterogeneity.
... The 43 events weighted from 0 to 1000 (in relation to marriage ranked at 500) became the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). 4 Subsequently, the original SRRS and revised versions have been used in a number of prospective studies [4][5][6] and asking about life events that occurred prior to enrollment. Life events are likely a mediator of illness because they cause significant stress, which is a critical determinant of health and well-being. ...
Objective
Although life events are clearly important to health, most of the scientific focus has been on baseline life events that occur prior to a study. Life events that occur after enrolment, that is, interval life events, have had almost no attention. The aim of this analysis of data was to develop a method for measuring interval life events that could be used in clinical trials and other longitudinal studies.
Design
Small Changes and Lasting Effects (SCALE) was a 12-month weight-loss randomised controlled trial (RCT). This was an analysis of the SCALE follow-up data.
Setting
Healthcare networks, outpatient clinics and community churches in the South Bronx and Harlem areas of New York City.
Participants
Overweight black and Latino adults. This analysis focuses on the 330 of the 405 patients who had >4 weeks of follow-up with at least one perceived stress score (PSS).
Intervention
The SCALE RCT was published elsewhere and involved positive affect and self-affirmation to increase behaviour change.
Outcome
5% weight loss.
Follow-up
Over 12 months, up to 27 follow-ups were conducted that evaluated interval life events, eating and physical activity behaviour, weight and perceived stress. During these follow-ups, participants were asked two open-ended questions to capture interval life events. The interval life events were qualitatively coded into categories. The interval life events categories were compared with interval monthly measures of perceived stress using the 4-item PSS scale.
Results
During the interval follow-ups for the RCT, 70.6% of the 330 patients reported at least one interval life event, which occurred during a median of 15 follow-ups (95% CI: 5 to 24). The median number of interval events was 2 (95% CI: 0 to 8): 30.6% reported their own illness; 22%, death or bereavement; 21.8%, illness in the family and 13.1%, family conflicts. The mean perceived stress score (PSS-4) assessed over the year of follow-up was 3.2±2.7. Mean perceived stress (PSS-4) increased, especially for interval financial events, major conflict with a partner and unemployment, but by less for deaths, family illness and family conflict. Participants with the most interval life events had the greatest increase in interval perceived stress (p<0.0001). Of note, neither high baseline perceived stress (PSS-10 >20) nor baseline depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9 >10) were associated with higher interval life events (p>0.05); but those with lower social support had more events. However, those with either depression or stress had higher interval stress responses. Most participants had neither baseline nor interval events, and the percentage with both was small so that baseline events did not predict subsequent perceived stress.
Conclusions
This method provides a straightforward method of assessing interval life events, by asking two open-ended questions, that can be coded in a simple categorical framework. Such events can affect outcomes in longitudinal studies and trials in part by increasing perceived stress. This framework moves beyond the events identified as important in the 1950s and recognises that specific life events may have significantly different life impacts in different individuals.
Trial registeration number
NCT01198990 ; Post-results.
... Unemployment may dissolve social ties (Lawes et al., 2022;Winefield & Tiggemann, 1990), diminish perceptions of meaning in life (Thill et al., 2020), social status (Neubert et al., 2019), and also a sense of agency and competence in achieving one's goals (Van Hooft & Noordzij, 2009). Therefore, it is unsurprising that unemployment is regarded as a highly stressful life event (Hobson et al., 1998), amplifying the probability of suicide (Milner et al., 2013), and exacerbating both mental and physical health issues (McKee-Ryan et al., 2005). ...
Introduction: The need for control is a fundamental human motivation, that when deprived can lead to broad and substantial changes in human behavior. We aimed to assess the consequences of control deprivation in a real-life situation that poses a severe threat to personal control: a prolonged unemployment.
Methods: Using a sample N = 1055 of unemployed (n = 748) versus working (n = 307) individuals, we examined predictions derived from two models of reactions to control deprivation: control-regaining and disengagement/withdrawal.
Results and conclusions: We found that unemployment is correlated with a psychological state strongly interfering with psychological as well as social functioning. While control-regaining models of responding to lack of control have received virtually no support from our findings, our results provide evidence that long-term unemployed individuals are more disengaged than working individuals. They are more apathetic, less likely to engage in control-regaining efforts and in active forms of construing one’s own future.
... The development of personal crises checklists, such as the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Holmes and Rahe 1967) or the updated and modified Stressful Life Events Scale (Hobson et al., 1998), have assisted scholars in identifying relevant, discrete, independent, and unbiased events across domains such as finances, family, health, and mortality. We included an abbreviated set of 13 personal crises in the 2018 CES Module and then expanded to 45 personal crises in the 2020 CES Module, which is nearly the full complement from the Stressful Life Events Scale. ...
Economic risk and instability are urgent and central facts in the lives of increasing numbers of Americans. Though experienced as “personal,” the causes of life disruptions like unemployment, eviction, and loss of health insurance are also deeply political. In this paper, we build on existing “single crisis” studies to offer a comprehensive theoretical and empirical picture of how life disruptions shape political behavior. We use several large surveys to show that personal crises generally dampen turnout but sometimes spur other political acts. We also find that highly politicized crises (such as those related to COVID) boost all forms of participation. Our findings speak to the importance of considering life disruptions in the study of political behavior, particularly in an era when the lives of Americans are especially precarious.
... The grieving process is complex and includes emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses (Arizmendi and O'Connor 2015). Losing a child is one of the most traumatic events an individual can experience (Hobson et al., 1998), and the neurobiological mechanisms behind the grieving process are still mostly unknown. Thus, a novel approach is necessary. ...
... 2Normative events in bold. 3Stress score according to Hobson et al. (1998) depending on individual narrative. 4p < .05. ...
Autobiographical memories play a vital role in shaping personal identity. Therefore, individuals often use various methods like diaries and photographs to preserve precious memories. Tattoos also serve as a means of remembering, yet their role in autobiographical memory has received limited attention in research. To address this gap, we surveyed 161 adults (68.9 per cent female, M = 26.93, SD = 6.57) to explore the life events that motivated their tattoos and to examine their most significant memories. We then compared these findings with significant memories of 185 individuals without tattoos (80.0 per cent female, M = 31.26, SD = 15.34). The results showed that the majority of tattoos were inspired by unique life events, including specific events about personal growth, relationships, leisure activities, losses, or diseases. Even when not directly tied to specific events in life, tattoos still reflect autobiographical content, such as mottos, beliefs, and values. Furthermore, the most significant memories of younger tattooed individuals (20-24 years) tended to be more normative and less stressful compared to those of their non-tattooed counterparts in the same age group, though the nature of these memories varied. This difference was not found among older participants (30-54 years). Additionally, those without tattoos indicated to use specific objects and methods for preserving important events, suggesting tattoos are only one of several ways to reminisce. However, tattoos uniquely allow for the physical embodiment of autobiographical memories, indicating that engraving significant life events in the skin aids in reflecting on one's life story.
... These may include loss of custody and time with children, conflict with the former spouse, a decline in disposable income, loss of emotional support, loss of social status and identity, moving to a new home, being a sole parent, and functioning in new roles (Amato, 2000(Amato, , 2010Fabricius & Luecken, 2007;Kołodziej-Zaleska & Przybyła-Basista, 2016). Accordingly, divorce and marital dissolution have consistently been identified as one of the most stressful life events across cultures, gender, and time (Hobson et al., 1998;Holmes & Rahe, 1967;Rahe & Arthur, 1978). According to Holmes & Rahe's Social Readjustment Rating Scale (1967), divorce is even more stressful than being imprisoned, experiencing the death of a close family member, or personal injury or illness, and is rated the second-most stressful life event overall in adulthood (Holmes & Rahe, 1967;Miller & Rahe, 1997). ...
Few digital divorce interventions have undergone rigorous randomized control trial study (RCT) testing of their physical and psychological health effects. This paper describes the Cooperation after Divorce (CAD) intervention including background, target group, design and engagement strategies, intervention development, content, and theoretical cornerstones. The 17-module digital psychoeducational intervention addresses three main content areas: (1) the divorcee themselves, (2) the children, and (3) co-parenting. The content of the modules provided psychoeducation and therapeutic activities focused on the maladaptive interactional patterns between former partners and how to develop new interactional schemas, including a focus on when and how to communicate with the former partner in a way that does not escalate conflict. A randomized controlled trial (N = 778) assessed the effect of CAD in terms of number of sick days. Participants were assessed at 3-, 6- and 12-month post-divorce. Independent samples t test revealed that participants in the intervention group on average reported 5.82 fewer sick days one year post-divorce than did participants in the control condition. The results suggest that digital post-divorce interventions decrease sick days for newly divorce individuals, thereby offering long-term human, family, and public health benefits.
... Common stressful events include going through abuse, loss of nancial means to support oneself, and death of relatives or an intimate partner. A well-established reference collection of such events with an added scale of signi cance of each event is called the 'Social Readjustment Rating Scale', introduced in 1967 and later revised by several authors [6,7]. However, many events in these scales, such as getting married (as opposed to forced or child marriage), typically don't have the qualities of being unplanned, undesirable, and stressful at the same time. ...
Objective. Stressful life events, such as going through divorce, can have an important impact on human health. However, there are challenges in capturing these events in electronic health records (EHR). We conducted a scoping review aimed to answer two major questions: how stressful life events are documented in EHR and how they are utilized in research and clinical care.
Materials and Methods.Three online databases (EBSCOhost platform, PubMed, and Scopus) were searched to identify papers that included information on stressful life events in EHR; paper titles and abstracts were reviewed for relevance by two independent reviewers.
Results. 557 unique papers were retrieved, and of these 70 were eligible for data extraction. Most articles (n=36, 51.4%) were focused on the statistical association between one or several stressful life events and health outcomes, followed by clinical utility (n=15, 21.4%), extraction of events from free-text notes (n=12, 17.1%), discussing privacy and other issues of storing life events (n=5, 7.1%), and new EHR features related to life events (n=4, 5.7%). The most frequently mentioned stressful life events in the publications were child abuse/neglect, arrest/legal issues, and divorce/relationship breakup. Almost half of the papers (n=7, 46.7%) that analyzed clinical utility of stressful events were focused on decision support systems for child abuse, while others (n=7, 46.7%) were discussing interventions related to social determinants of health in general.
Discussion and Conclusions.Few citations are available on the prevalence and use of stressful life events in EHR reflecting challenges in screening and storing of stressful life events.
... Nonmilitary stressors were measured with a modified version of the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Hobson et al., 1998;Holmes & Rahe, 1967) comprising an abbreviated checklist of 10 stressful events from the original 51-item measure. Participants responded "yes" (1) or "no" (0) to indicate whether they had experienced each event. ...
Disparities in posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) have been observed among military service members (SMs) and spouses (SPs) compared to their civilian peers, but exposure to military stressors does not adequately explain observed differences. Using a stress process framework, this study considered the associations between early and recent military and nonmilitary stressors and PTSS among SMs and SPs. We analyzed data from 3,314 SM-SP dyads in the Millennium Cohort and Millennium Cohort Family Studies. Accounting for covariates, multiple linear regression and dominance analyses were employed to consider the effects of SM and SP childhood maltreatment, recent nonmilitary stressors (e.g., financial difficulties), and recent military stressors (e.g., deployment) on their own and their partner's self-reported PTSS. For both SMs and SPs, childhood maltreatment was the strongest predictor of their own PTSS, followed by nonmilitary stressors. Couple crossover dynamics were evident as SP maltreatment and nonmilitary stressors significantly predicted SM PTSS, and SM maltreatment predicted SP PTSS. Maltreatment also multiplied the effects of SM, product term B = 0.92, p = .031, and SP, product term B = 0.75, p = .004, nonmilitary stressors. The findings emphasize the essential role of exposure to early adversity in understanding PTSS among SMs and SPs, as childhood maltreatment strongly predicted PTSS and exacerbated the effects of other stressors on PTSS. Providers should assess for early adversity among both SMs and SPs and consider the provision of services at the couple level given the potential for the transmission of stress within couples.
... We considered two aspects of global stress, namely major life events and chronic stress. To assess participants' lifetime exposure to major life events, we used semi-structured interviews based on an adapted version of the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Hobson et al., 1998). The interviews contained questions regarding 32 life events and one option for 'other events', which, if applicable, the participants specified. ...
Objectives:
While encountering daily hassles is a normative experience, it poses a threat to individuals' daily affective well-being. However, physical activity engagement may help to reduce the current stress-related impact on affective well-being (i.e. stress buffering), which we investigate in this study. Furthermore, we examined the possible moderating role of people's global stress context (i.e. exposure to major life events and chronic stress) on this within-person stress-buffering effect.
Design:
We approached these ideas using six-times-a-day experience sampling assessments over a period of 22 days.
Methods:
Drawing on a broad national sample of 156 middle-aged adults from the EE-SOEP-IS study, we aimed to elucidate the naturally occurring within-person dynamics of current stress, physical activity engagement, and momentary affect within individuals' everyday lives. Major life events and chronic stress were measured as between-person variables.
Results:
Multilevel analyses revealed significant within-person associations of current stress and physical activity engagement with momentary affect. Stress-related negative affect was lower when individuals engaged in physical activity, in accordance with the idea of a within-person stress-buffering effect of physical activity engagement. For individuals exposed to more severe major life events, the stress-buffering effect of physical activity engagement for negative affect was lower. Chronic stress did not moderate the within-person stress-buffering effect.
Conclusions:
Overall, results add to the existing literature that links physical activity to increased stress resilience and emphasizes the need for taking the global between-person stress context into account.
... A good example of persistence was Josephine who went through significant ecological transitions partly triggered by reorganisation in education, namely two school closures, being made redundant and retraining as a Special Needs teacher. Such episodes are considered significant life events and tend to be unsettling and stressful (Armstrong et al, 2011;Hobson et al, 1998 andHolmes andRahe, 1967), yet Josephine did not quit teaching. Rather, she came up with a possible solution to the risk she encountered. ...
This study focused on stress and resilience among teachers in 15 urban secondary schools serving areas of multiple and complex disadvantage in the Greater Manchester and Merseyside regions of England (UK). It utilised the mixed-methods approach to gather and analyse the data. This consisted of a questionnaire survey of 150 teachers and interviews of 20 teachers. It examined person characteristics of teachers in these schools; key stress risks in the schools; coping strategies employed by these teachers and their protective factors. The main quantitative analysis methodologies used in the study were descriptive analysis; factor analysis and regression analysis. Qualitative findings were analysed using thematic analysis and teacher pen portrait and school case study presentations. Integrative analysis of quantitative and qualitative findings was then conducted in the discussion of main findings. This study found that the teachers’ major force characteristics were self-efficacy; persistence; personal attitudes towards one’s job; personality and temperament and commitment to the job. Their main resource characteristic was experience while their major demand characteristic was their professional role. These teachers were also exposed to person, proximal processes, context and time risks. There were risks associated with force and demand person characteristics. The main process risks were within their interactions with pupils, parents, colleagues and senior management. There were also context risks in their microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem. There were also time risks across the microtime, mesotime and macrotime. To cope, teachers in this sample utilised both direct-action and palliative coping strategies. Results also indicated that these teachers’ protective factors were in their resource and force characteristics; proximal processes; context and time.
... Socioeconomic status was shown to have an impact on life 8,9 events and other stressors. Higher financial stress was associated with moderate to-severe func onal limita ons and poor-to-fair self-rated health. ...
Introduction: Stress and stressful life events are believed to precipitate depressive disorders but the areas of stress and types of stressful life events found in depression vary by socio-cultural contexts. So this study was conducted to assess the contribution of the number and severity of recent stressful life events on the prevalence of depressive disorder in a tertiary hospital in Nepal. Methodology: 237 consecutive patients with ICD-10 diagnosis of a depressive disorder were included in the study. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was applied to rate the severity of depressive disorder and The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) was applied to assess for the severity of stressful life events. Result: 65.8% patients had experienced low severity of Stressful life events SLEs while 13.5% patients suffered from medium severity of SLEs and 20.6% suffered from severe SLEs. Severity of depression assessed with BDI revealed the 62.8% patients suffered from moderate depression while 22.7% suffers from severe depression. The Chi square statistics showed statistically significant difference on age, marital status, educational status and socioeconomic status. Also the severity of depression was found to be statistically significant with severity of SLEs experienced. Conclusion: Significant correlation was seen between severity of depressive disorder and stressful life events. Establishing their impact and addressing coping mechanisms should be done to make for a comprehensive management of any patient diagnosed with depressive disorder.
... This study aimed to introduce a scaleable method to adopt SRRS to improve social scientists' stress measures. Additionally, it was confirmed to be robust enough to represent most major life stresses and as a good predictor for future health outcomes, even across different ethnic groups [42][43][44]. Moreover, it was found that the rank ordering of the life stresses remained consistent for both healthy adults (r = 0.96-0.89) ...
Moving homes has long been considered stressful, but how stressful is it? This study is an original attempt to utilise a micro-level individual dataset in the New Zealand Government’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) to reconstruct the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) and thereby measure stress at a whole-of-population level. The effects of residential mobility on people’s mental well-being in the context of their stress-of-moving homes are examined. By using difference-in-differences analysis, this study scrutinises the stress level across movers, namely homeowners and renters (i.e., treatment groups) and non-movers (i.e., a control group). The results show that the change in residence increases people’s overall stress levels. Homeowners are more stressed than renters, with non-movers as the counterfactuals. Furthermore, the frequency of change in residences increases individual baseline stress levels. By progressing the understanding of such stresses, residential mobility researchers can contribute to broader discussions on how individuals’ interpersonal history and social mobility influence their experience. The whole-of-population-based SRRS will better advance our current ways of measuring mental stress at a population level, which is crucial to broader discussions of people’s well-being.
... Several classification systems of sources of stress rate the death of a spouse or child as the most stressful life event one can experience. 24,25 Adults with an age range similar to that of our cohort members are likely to have the closest emotional ties with their partner, followed by children, grandchildren, siblings, and parents. The death of a partner deprives bereaved patients of a strong emotional bond and source of support, but may also lead to adverse changes in their life situation and in their finances. ...
BACKGROUND
Despite accumulating evidence suggesting that bereavement is associated with increased risks of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, the association between bereavement and prognosis after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has not been well documented. We investigated the association by using Swedish register data.
METHODS AND RESULTS
We studied 266 651 patients with a first AMI included in the SWEDEHEART (Swedish Web‐system for Enhancement and Development of Evidence‐based care in Heart disease Evaluated According to Recommended Therapies) quality register from 1991 to 2018. We obtained information on bereavement (ie, death of a partner, child, grandchild, sibling, or parent), on primary (nonfatal recurrent AMI and death attributed to ischemic heart disease) and secondary outcomes (total mortality, heart failure, and stroke) and on covariates from several national registers. The association was analyzed using Poisson regression. The bereaved patients had a slightly increased risk of the primary outcome; the corresponding risk ratio (RR) was 1.02 (95% CI, 1.00–1.04). An increased risk was noted any time bereavement occurred, except if the loss was in the year after the first AMI. The association was strongest for the loss of a partner, followed by the loss of a child, grandchild, sibling, or parent. We also observed increased risks for total mortality (RR, 1.14 [95% CI, 1.12–1.16]), heart failure (RR, 1.05 [95% CI, 1.02–1.08]), and stroke (RR, 1.09 [95% CI, 1.05–1.13]) following bereavement.
CONCLUSIONS
Bereavement was associated with an increased risk of poor prognosis after a first AMI. The association varied by the relationship to the deceased.
... in the last 12 months (the time in between two waves) were assessed via a structured interview at Wave 2. We modified the Social Readjustment Rating Scale Revised (Hobson et al., 1998) for this purpose, asking our participants for the occurrence of 32 specific events (such as death of a spouse/a loved one, serious illnesses, financial difficulties), in the past year (0-no/1-yes). If the event had occurred, we also asked a number of additional questions, focussing here on the severity of the event, which was assessed by asking how difficult it was to cope with the event (0-very easy to 5-very difficult). ...
Resilience describes successful adaptation in the face of adversity, commonly inferred from trajectories of well‐being following major life events. Alternatively, resilience was conceptualized as a psychological trait, facilitating adaptation through stable individual characteristics. Both perspectives may relate to individual differences in how stress is regulated in daily life. In the present study, we combined these perspectives on resilience. Our sample consisted of N = 132 middle‐aged adults, who experienced major life events in between two waves of a longitudinal study. We implemented latent change regression models to predict change in affective distress. As predictors, we investigated trait resilience and correlates of resilience in daily life (stressor occurrence, stress reactivity, positive reappraisal, mindful attention, and acceptance), measured using experience sampling (T = 70 occasions). Unexpectedly, trait resilience was not associated with change in distress. In contrast, resilience correlates in daily life, most notably lower stress reactivity, were associated with more favorable change. Higher trait resilience related to higher average mindfulness, higher reappraisal, and lower negative affect. Overall, while trait resilience translated into everyday correlates of resilience, it was not predictive of changes in affective distress. Instead, precursors of changes in well‐being may be found in correlates of resilience in daily life. (200/200) This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... [6] The existence of stressors or intrapsychic conflicts may have been the identified causative agents but both the magnitude and the multiplicity of such stressors are important as well. [7] Jaspers also stated that the content of the psychosis often reflected the nature of the traumatic experiences and that the development of the psychosis seemed to serve a purpose for the patient, often as an escape from a traumatic condition. [8] It was not only that psychosis developed in association with emotional trauma, but also the course and phenomenology reflected the trauma. ...
Background
Acute and transient psychotic disorders (ATPDs) have benign course and takes place in the existence of noticeable and exceptionally traumatic stressors (direct temporal association between stressors and occurrence of ATPD) which necessitate clinical investigations. Stressors are also known to affect phenomenology and its content.
Aims and Objectives
This study aims to study the socio-demographic characteristics, clinical variables, the role of stressors and phenomenology in ATPDs patients.
Methodology
It is a cross-sectional and observational study. This study was done on 150 patients diagnosed on the basis of International Classification of Disease-10 diagnosis criteria of ATPDs after getting an informed consent from them. Patients’ information was recorded on socio-demographic and clinical profile sheet. Thereafter, Presumptive Stressful Life Event Scale and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) scales were applied to assess the stressors and phenomenology, respectively.
Results
Most of the patients were female and were between 15 and 35 years of age. Mean age of patients was 32.45 (standard deviation = 11.25) years. Majority of the patients were educated, married, and unemployed. A large amount of the patients belong to nuclear family and were resident of rural areas. Most of the patients presented within 2 weeks of the onset of the illness without any past or family psychiatric history. In 75% patients, stressors precede the onset of the illness. The average value of PANSS was higher in female. Sleep disturbances, delusions, hallucinations, poor rapport, lack of insight, and concrete thinking were the most commonly observed phenomenology in these patients.
Conclusions
Maximum patients who developed the illness had psychological stressor/s in the past year (mainly before 2 weeks) of the onset of the illness. It helps to consider the person’s life events as a trigger for illness and make decisions regarding treatment accordingly.
... In this regard, we acknowledge that the wording of some of our items could be improved to pinpoint EAs more accurately. For example, whilst the 'death of a very close friend or family member' (item 1) can indeed be a very stressful event for adolescents and young adults (Hobson et al., 1998), the death of a grandparent may more often be an inevitable experience when compared to the death of parents, siblings, or close friends. Therefore, on average, coping may be easier in the more expected circumstance of a death of a grandparent. ...
Background
Early adversity (EA) can contribute to the onset, manifestation, and course of various mental disorders. Measuring EA is still conceptually and psychometrically challenging due to issues such as content coverage, item-wording, scaling methods, and validation procedures. Further, despite research demonstrating the importance of the severity of EA, most EA scales solely focused on the ‘presence-versus-absence’ indicator of adverse events.
Objective
To address these potentially relevant gaps, we have developed a 13-item measure of EA, the Youth and Childhood Adversity Scale (YCAS). Beyond a dichotomous assessment of whether a set of adverse events have been experienced, this scale also assesses the respective severity of these events.
Methods
We evaluated the YCAS in a sample of 596 adolescent students (ages 16–19) and a second sample of 451 medical students (ages 18–30+). Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the underlying structure as proposed by the data, which was then tested with confirmatory factor analysis. We psychometrically assessed both factor scores and sum scores.
Results
In both samples, a one-factorial solution was found for both responses to dichotomous items and severity items. Item loadings had a broad range, with minimum loadings of .1-.2 and maximum loadings of .7-.9. Irrespective of the response type, this factor exhibited good reliability (omega total, range: .80 − .89) and was associated with a range of mental-health outcomes, self-esteem, and childhood maltreatment. The fit of the model resembling sum scores was not satisfactory, but the sum score reliability (coefficient alpha, range: .78 − .89) was acceptable and most of the associations with the validation measures held.
Conclusions
The YCAS allows an efficient, reliable, and valid assessment of EA and its severity. It covers a reasonable breadth of events, whilst simultaneously being parsimonious. We discuss next steps of how to improve this measure to fully capture the complexity of EA.
... the exact moment the adversity happened between two assessment waves, and therefore participants could be at different stages of recovery. However, given the time scale (1 year) between the assessment waves, and the fact that all items included in Brugha List of Threatening Experiences have been established as having long-term consequences for mental health (Bebbington & Hurry, 1985;Hobson et al., 1998), we believe that this way of assessing adversity can provide useful information. Finally, the power analysis shows that the proposed analysis for specifically the third research question does not have sufficient power to detect small effect sizes. ...
Background
Psychological resilience refers to the ability to maintain mental health or recover quickly after stress. Despite the popularity of resilience research, there is no consensus understanding or operationalization of resilience.
Objective
We plan to compare three indicators of resilience that each involve a different operationalization of the construct: a) General resilience or one’s self-reported general ability to overcome adversities; b) Daily resilience as momentarily experienced ability to overcome adversities; and c) Recovery speed evident in the pattern of negative affect recovery after small adversities in daily life. These three indicators are constructed per person to investigate their cross-sectional associations, stability over time, and predictive validity regarding mental health.
Methods
Data will be derived from the prospective MIRORR study that comprises 96 individuals at different levels of psychosis risk and contains both single-time assessed questionnaires and 90-days intensive longitudinal data collection at baseline (T0) and three yearly follow-up waves (T1–T3). General resilience is assessed using the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) at baseline. Daily resilience is measured by averaging daily resilience scores across 90 days. For recovery speed, vector-autoregressive models with consecutive impulse response simulations will be applied to diary data on negative affect and daily stressors to calculate pattern of affect recovery. These indicators will be correlated concurrently (at T0) to assess their overlap and prospectively (between T0 and T1) to estimate their stability. Their predictive potential will be assessed by regression analysis with mental health (SCL-90) as an outcome, resilience indicators as predictors, and stressful life events as a moderator.
Conclusion
The comparison of different conceptualizations of psychological resilience can increase our understanding of its multifaceted nature and, in future, help improve diagnostic, prevention and intervention strategies aimed at increasing psychological resilience.
... The Life Events Scale is a list of 42 major life events such as divorce, change in residence or a child leaving home adapted from Holmes and Rahe 57 and Hobson et al 58 . ...
► This study is the first to systematically investigate treatment seeking attitudes and behaviours in a large population of users of an app-based mental health intervention.
► The assessment of both predictors of treatment seeking and actual treatment seeking behaviour enables the investigation of possible indicators for decision making in stepped care.
► The inclusion of a control group, possible moder- ator variables and follow-up measurements will allow analyses to assess potential mechanisms of improvement.
► The study may be limited by a relatively high rate of attrition that is to be expected in unguided self-help solutions.
La investigación moderna en ciencias experimentales para analizar las relaciones y patrones de comportamiento entre las variables y factores bajo investigación implica la medición simultánea de múltiples parámetros, los cuales generan un volumen masivo de datos. La complejidad en la estructura de éstos demanda implementar secuencias de enseñanza aprendizaje para preparar recursos humanos calificados con las habilidades, destrezas y conocimientos basados en matemáticas, minería de datos e inteligencia artificial, que les permitan vincular sus conocimientos y experiencias con situaciones reales para procesar, analizar e interpretar la significancia de los datos. En este trabajo se presenta el diseño y aplicación de una secuencia de aprendizaje a estudiantes de licenciatura en ingeniería, para investigar su nivel de entendimiento de la técnica de análisis de componentes principales en la búsqueda de información crítica y la reducción la complejidad de datos con el objetivo de ilustrar la utilidad de esa técnica en los procesos de enseñanza aprendizaje. Se incluye una breve introducción a la técnica seguida en su aplicación para un conjunto datos multivariantes reales obtenidos de pacientes hipertensos para identificar las variables que incrementan el riesgo de presentar una enfermedad coronaria y un posible infarto. La meta es que los educandos articulen sus conocimientos y experiencias previas con la realidad de pacientes hipertensos y adquieran habilidades, destrezas y conocimiento para el análisis y procesamiento de datos multivariantes.
Abstract
Modern research in experimental sciences to analyze the relationships and patterns of behavior between the variables and factors under investigation involves simultaneously measuring multiple parameters, which generate a massive volume of data. The complexity in their structure requires implementing teaching-learning sequences to prepare qualified human resources with the skills, abilities and knowledge based on mathematics, data mining and artificial intelligence, which allow them to link their knowledge and experiences with real situations to process. analyze and interpret the importance of the data. This work presents the design and application of a learning sequence to undergraduate engineering students, to investigate their level of understanding of the principal component analysis technique in the search for critical information and the reduction of data complexity to illustrate the usefulness of this technique in teaching-learning processes. A brief introduction to the technique followed in its application to a set of real multivariate data obtained from hypertensive patients is included
to identify the variables that increase the risk of presenting coronary heart disease and a possible heart attack. The aim is for students to articulate their previous knowledge and personal experiences with the reality of hypertensive patients and to acquire skills, abilities, and expertise to analyze and process multivariate data.
Human beings cannot remain insulated from stress. However, individuals have varying levels of resistance against stress. In this case study, Jim experienced a high level of stress and eventually lost control over his behavior and skidded into an environment of burnout. In 1984, he rejoined a firm in Alberta, Canada. The employee is charged with enthusiasm and motivation. Due to low morale in the firm, a motivational plan is conceived and finalized amongst the senior command echelon. On 1 May 1984, there were several competitions conducted between the sub-units. He was the major contributor to the plan and felt equally delighted. However, on 8 May 1984, he started to openly display erratic behavior before his colleagues. As recollected by friends and himself, his behavior reflects a deviation from his normal character: highly energized, overly communicative, angry, and emotional verbosity. He is eventually diagnosed with a case of “Acute Stress Reaction” and administered medication.
This paper investigates how family events interacting with entrepreneurs’ psychological affect and overconfidence impact new venture viability. We use panel data from the Australian Household, Income and Labor Dynamics survey, focusing on family event-induced psychological affect entrepreneurs experience as a predictor of new venture survival. Our accelerated failure time model shows that although negative family events interact with entrepreneur overconfidence to spur cautious behaviour, positive events interacting with overconfidence have the biggest impact (negative) on new ventures. The study enhances our understanding of the embeddedness of family in the entrepreneurial process and challenges past research by revealing how positive family events can have a greater negative impact on new venture survival than negative ones.
Objectives
Stressful life events, such as going through divorce, can have an important impact on human health. However, there are challenges in capturing these events in electronic health records (EHR). We conducted a scoping review aimed to answer 2 major questions: how stressful life events are documented in EHR and how they are utilized in research and clinical care.
Materials and Methods
Three online databases (EBSCOhost platform, PubMed, and Scopus) were searched to identify papers that included information on stressful life events in EHR; paper titles and abstracts were reviewed for relevance by 2 independent reviewers.
Results
Five hundred fifty-seven unique papers were retrieved, and of these 70 were eligible for data extraction. Most articles (n = 36, 51.4%) were focused on the statistical association between one or several stressful life events and health outcomes, followed by clinical utility (n = 15, 21.4%), extraction of events from free-text notes (n = 12, 17.1%), discussing privacy and other issues of storing life events (n = 5, 7.1%), and new EHR features related to life events (n = 4, 5.7%). The most frequently mentioned stressful life events in the publications were child abuse/neglect, arrest/legal issues, and divorce/relationship breakup. Almost half of the papers (n = 7, 46.7%) that analyzed clinical utility of stressful events were focused on decision support systems for child abuse, while others (n = 7, 46.7%) were discussing interventions related to social determinants of health in general.
Discussion and Conclusions
Few citations are available on the prevalence and use of stressful life events in EHR reflecting challenges in screening and storing of stressful life events.
Objective
To determine the impact of pet ownership on older people's decision to move to supported accommodation.
Methods
Online survey.
Results
Older Australians who were current or past pet owners were invited to complete an online survey, with 193 participants providing valid data. Almost two‐thirds of the respondents who said they did not intend to move in the foreseeable future ( n = 85) said their pet was an important reason. When asked to rate which factors would be hardest to come to terms with if they had to move because they needed more assistance in future, three groups emerged: the first group (37%) thought the impact on their pet of moving would not be difficult and the pet was not an important reason for staying in their current home. The second group (36%) were the opposite; they believed there would be a negative impact on their pet if they moved and the pet was an important reason for them to stay. The final group (27%) thought their pet was not an important reason to stay in their current location but if they did have to move, the impact on the pet would be quite difficult. No one fell into the category of identifying that their pet was an important reason to stay but having to move would have no impact on the animal.
Conclusions
Many older people think about their pets when making a decision to move house, including considering whether a move to supported accommodation will be difficult for their pet. A perceived absence of pet‐friendly supported accommodation may be contributing to sub‐optimal decision‐making by older people.
Objective. Stressful life events, such as going through divorce, can have an important impact on human health. However, there are challenges in capturing these events in electronic health records (EHR). We conducted a scoping review aimed to answer two major questions: how stressful life events are documented in EHR and how they are utilized in research and clinical care.
Materials and Methods. Three online databases (EBSCOhost platform, PubMed, and Scopus) were searched to identify papers that included information on stressful life events in EHR; paper titles and abstracts were reviewed for relevance by two independent reviewers.
Results. 527 unique papers were retrieved, and of these 60 were eligible for data extraction. Most articles (n=24, 40%) were focused on the statistical association between one or several stressful life events and health outcomes, followed by clinical utility (n=14, 23.3%), extraction of events from free-text notes (n=8, 13.3%), discussing privacy and other issues of storing life events (n=5, 8.3%), and new EHR features related to life events (n=4, 6.7%). The most frequently mentioned stressful life events in the publications were child abuse/neglect, arrest/legal issues, divorce/relationship breakup. Half of the papers (n=7) that analyzed clinical utility were focused on decision support systems for child abuse and neglect, while the other half (n=7) were discussing clinical interventions related to social determinants of health in general.
Discussion and Conclusions. Few studies are available on the prevalence and use of stressful life events in EHR reflecting challenges in screening and storage of stressful life events.
Intuitively, we think that the idea we can have of stress from one country to another, and therefore from one culture to another, is different. What form do these differences take? This is the question that this chapter attempts to answer. The finding is that the answer exists at the macroscopic level, for example, by categories of stressors, but very few studies examine stressors in detail from one culture to another. While the data available in the scientific literature confirm the difference in perception of stress factors from one culture to another, unfortunately they do not allow an exhaustive mapping of this perception by culture.
In pursuit of approaching efficient interventions to prevent maladjustment to life-course transitions, theories on the process of adjustment are shortly reviewed and analyzed. References are made to personality and personality-trait theories, typological theories, stress theories, process theories, interactive theories, chaos theories, and stage theories of adjustment. It is suggested that each one of these theories presents only a partial description of the adjustment process to life-course transitions. Hence, they complete each other and together establish a solid ground for the suggestion of a grand theory of the generic components that future preventive interventions in this field should address.KeywordsPersonalityTraitsTypologyStressInteractionChaosStages
Parental divorce is the second most prevalent adverse childhood event. Although most children from divorced families do not experience significant adjustment problems, compared to youth in two-parent families, those from divorced families exhibit higher levels significant problems (e.g., mental health problems; school dropout). Analysis of the problems that children face once parents get divorced are presented, and related prevention programs – either child-focused or family-focused – are described. Based on the notion that high-quality parenting mitigated the negative effect of divorce-related stressors on mental health problems, the New Beginnings Program (NBP) is further presented and discussed. The NBP is a theory-based preventive intervention that combines elements from a person-environment transactional framework and a risk and protective factor model. Evaluations of the NBP indicate its wide range of positive outcomes for families and prove that it is also cost-effective.KeywordsMarriageFamilyParental divorceMental health problemsNew Beginnings Program (NBP)Person-environment transactionalRisk factorsProtective factorsPositive outcomesCost-effective
Previous research found that bereavement is associated with several pathological responses affecting both physical and mental health. During the COVID-19 pandemic and the socially disruptive measures implemented, losses of close contacts have occurred under exceptional circumstances, and it is reasonable to expect that many bereaved people would be unable to overcome their loss adaptively, resulting in dysfunctional grief leading to mental health alterations. Loneliness, which has increased during the pandemic, has been identified as a significant risk factor for mental health that is common when people grieve. In this study, we aimed to gauge the effects of bereavement on mental health in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and to explore the mediating role of loneliness on the relationship between grief and mental health alterations by surveying a representative sample of 2000 Spanish adults interviewed by phone during the pandemic (February-March 2021). Logistic regressions were performed to examine the effects of grief levels on depression, anxiety, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Our results confirmed that how the loss of a loved one is processed is associated with the development of mental health conditions. Dysfunctional grief was significantly associated with all mental health conditions, particularly depression (OR = 14.28) and anxiety (OR = 11.61). As predicted, loneliness accounted for a substantial percentage (8-30%) of the impact of grief on mental health outcomes.
Importance:
Unaffordable housing is associated with adverse health-related outcomes, but little is known about the associations between moving due to unaffordable housing and health-related outcomes.
Objective:
To characterize the association of recent cost-driven residential moves with health-related outcomes.
Design, setting, and participants:
This cross-sectional study involved a weighted multivariable regression analysis of California Health Interview Survey data from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2017. A population-based sample of 52 646 adult renters and other nonhomeowners in California were included. Data were analyzed from March 2, 2021, to January 6, 2023.
Exposure:
Cost-driven moves in the past 3 years relative to no move and to non-cost-driven moves.
Main outcomes and measures:
Five outcomes were assessed: psychological distress (low, moderate, or severe, as categorized by the 6-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale), emergency department [ED] visits in the past year (any vs none), preventive care visits in the past year (any vs none), general health (poor or fair vs good, very good, or excellent), and walking for leisure in the past 7 days (in minutes).
Results:
Among 52 646 adult renters and other nonhomeowners, 50.3% were female, 85.2% were younger than 60 years, 45.3% were Hispanic, and 55.1% had income lower than 200% of the federal poverty level. Overall, 8.9% of renters reported making a recent cost-driven move, with higher prevalence among Hispanic (9.9%) and non-Hispanic Black (11.3%) renters compared with non-Hispanic White renters (7.2%). In multivariable models, compared with not moving, cost-driven moving was associated with a 4.2 (95% CI, 2.6-5.7) percentage point higher probability of experiencing moderate psychological distress; a 3.2 (95% CI, 1.9-4.5) percentage point higher probability of experiencing severe psychological distress; a 2.5 (95% CI, 0-4.9) percentage point higher probability of ED visits; a 5.1 (95% CI, 1.6-8.6) percentage point lower probability of having preventive care visits; a 3.7 (95% CI, 1.2-6.2) percentage point lower probability of having good, very good, or excellent general health; and 16.8 (95% CI, 6.9-26.6) fewer minutes of walking for leisure. General health, psychological distress, and walking for leisure were also worse with cost-driven moves relative to non-cost-driven moves, with a 3.2 (95% CI, 1.7-4.7) percentage point higher probability of experiencing moderate psychological distress; a 2.5 (95% CI, 1.2-3.9) percentage point higher probability of experiencing severe psychological distress; a 4.6 (95% CI, 2.1-7.2) percentage point lower probability of having good, very good, or excellent general health; and 13.0 (95% CI, 4.0-21.9) fewer minutes of walking for leisure. However, the incidence of preventive care and ED visits did not differ between those who made cost-driven vs non-cost-driven moves.
Conclusions and relevance:
In this study, cost-driven moves were associated with adverse health-related outcomes relative to not moving and to non-cost-driven moves. These findings suggest that policies to improve housing affordability, prevent displacement, and increase access to health care for groups vulnerable to cost-driven moves may have the potential to improve population health equity, especially during the current national housing affordability crisis.
According to the object relations theory, romantic partners are chosen on the basis of similar, complementary emotional needs and that creates a promise on the conscious and unconscious level that all that was missing in the previous relationships of an individual would be repaired through this relationship. However, in any longer relationship the breach of expectations is inevitable (destruction of an idealized image of the partner), which leads to disappointment. The destiny of the relationship depends on the way in which partners will deal with the frustrating knowledge that their idealisations will not be realised, or the level of maturity of the relationship and each partner, which is a test that many do not pass. It is commonly known that divorce rates are higher than ever before, and some divorces become high-conflict relationships in which all emotions caused by the breakdown of the relationship swirl into one common aspect – parental functioning. This paper is focused on the couples who experience a difficult breakdown of their relationship – with a lot of anger, hostility, distrust, and sometimes with the incidents of verbal and/or physical abuse, accompanied by lengthy and distressing court proceedings. It is noticeable that the conflict has a role of redefining the dynamics of their new partnership relation, and at the same time it serves as a defense of a person who does not have to deal with and face with complex unpleasant emotions that are a part of every divorce. Unable to accept, analyse and tolerate the unpleasantness of the emotions brought by divorce, these couples often use defense mechanisms of splitting and projections. The usage of these mechanisms leads to the dynamics which is characterised by a cycle of harassment, retaliation and failed reparation attempts that in turn lead to further splitting and projection, often with the resulting outcome of a high-conflict divorce. Couples remain connected and locked in mutual patterns of conflict interactions, in a kind of a tango of loving hate in a manner which restricts their capacity to separate on emotional and daily practical level. After presenting two cases from practice that describe the outlined psychodynamic terms and the interactions of partners differently, practical implications which are possible in direct work with former partners will be presented.
This study evaluated the Persian version of the Pandemic Grief Scale (PGS) psychometric properties in a sample of 473 people who have suffered the loss of a loved one due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The scale was internally consistent with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.86. The PGS found a positive and significant correlation between the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) and Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS). Furthermore, the unidimensional model had a good fit. Overall, the PGS showed good psychometric properties in the Iranian population.
Population aging is sweeping the globe. In the foreseeable future, though being replaced soon by India as the most populous nation, China is and will be holding the largest older population in the world. According to the most recent census of China in 2020, the proportion of Chinese older individuals aged 65 years old and above has approached nearly 14 percent, suggesting China is becoming an aged society. This is a huge challenge for China nowadays, especially regarding how to meet the health needs of the large size of older Chinese. Research is thus called for, including but not limited to investigations on the prevalence and trend of chronic diseases and their related risk factors, the transformation of eldercare and healthcare, and evaluations of the policies and interventions of population aging. This Research Topic on Aging and health in China has collected cutting-edge studies on these critical topics from an interdisciplinary perspective, representing the current research progress in this vital field.
Meditation-induced after death communication (MI-ADC) was introduced as a potential modality for grief therapy. Traditional and contemporary approaches were compared in order to evaluate effective paradigms and theories of bereavement. The Continuing Bonds theory of attachment emerged as an adaptive framework for grief therapy, especially with attention to meaning-making and the strength of continued bonds. Considerations were implemented from research in psychomanteum, mediumship, and induced after death communication. Specifically, visual stimuli and timing of after death communications were emphasized. The discussion was encouraging for the conceptualization of MI-ADC as an effective construct and as an inquiry for empirical research.
The category of single men is an umbrella term including men who are never married, widowed, separated, or divorced. Research indicates that single men have more mental health issues than married men, but that divorced and separated men are at the highest risk of adverse mental health outcomes including suicide, substance use disorder, and depression. This risk is greater than that seen in divorced or separated women, implying that divorce and separation can be particularly harmful for men. This gender differential has been attributed to several factors including separation from children following a divorce, an intense decrease in social support, and a lack of services and supports for divorced or separated men. Moreover, separation and divorce are severe life events that can harm the mental health of affected children, particularly boys. Evidence suggests that boys raised in fatherless families are at risk of negative psychosocial outcomes, while single-father households may confer protection. This indicates that the absence of masculine influence in the home is harmful to offspring mental health. Trends indicate that a substantial and growing number of people are divorcing and living alone, while there has been a large growth in single-mother households. This may negatively affect community mental health.
This article has 2 objectives. The 1st is to present necessary and sufficient conditions for the validity of traditional within-S
F tests in repeated measures designs. It is shown that the Mauchly sphericity criterion (
W) and possibly the Box test for the equality of covariance matrices are appropriate to judge the validity of these conditions. Valid applications of both tests are conducted on sets of orthogonal normalized variables that are associated with each cluster of within-S mean square ratios. The 2nd objective of the article is to present empirical results on the appropriateness of using the
W criterion when the variates are not normally distributed. For light-tailed distributions the
W criterion was shown to be moderately conservative, whereas for heavy-tailed distributions, empirical Type I error rates exceeded nominal alpha. Since most social science applications typically involve light-tailed rather than heavy-tailed distributions, the
W criterion should provide useful results in most cases. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The general psychophysical law is that equal stimulus ratios produce equal subjective ratios. A first-order approximation is a power function whose exponent varies from 0.3 (loudness) to 2.0 (visual flash rate). This holds for Class I (prothetic) or quantitative continua, distinguishable by 4 criteria: "the j.n.d. increases in subjective size as psychological magnitude increases, category rating-scales are concave downwards when plotted against psychological magnitude, comparative judgments exhibit a time-order error… , and equisection experiments exhibit hystersis" (a lagging behind of apparent sense differences). Class II (metathetic) or qualitative continua are lacking in these 4 criteria. Psychological scales based on direct ratio methods are better than Fechnerian methods, e.g., method of paired comparisons. 75 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
On prothetic continua (apparent length, duration, area, etc.) the ratio scale of subjective magnitude approximates a power function of the physical stimulus. The category scale is concave downward relative to the ratio scale for discrimination which is better at one end of the continuum than at the other. On metathetic continua (visual position, inclination, pitch, etc.) discrimination (in subjective units) is constant over the range, although differential familiarity may introduce nonuniformities. Additional aspects of the continua and scales are discussed. 75 references.
Groups of papers describe (a) research programs on the relations between stressful life events (SLE) and episodes of physical illness, (b) clinical research on SLE as related to types of physical and psychiatric disorder, (c) community research on SLE and psychiatric symptomatology, and (d) methodological research on SLE. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
"Controlling Work Stress" is about employees with problems that are the consequence of too much—and in some cases, too little—stress. Composed of three parts, this work discusses how organizations can assist in combatting stress in ways that benefit both the employees involved and the organization itself. Part One provides an introduction to the topic of stress generally and to work-related stress specifically. It explains why stress is an important topic to organizations and to those who are responsible for managing them. It also outlines what dysfunctional stress can cost companies and why these costs should not—and need not—be paid. Finally, it provides a background and framework for the remainder of the book.
Part Two focuses on a number of basic guidelines for the prevention, management, and amelioration of work-related stress. It provides guidelines for assessing the extent to which stress is a problem in your organization, suggests ways of improving relationships between individuals and the organization, offers techniques for both individuals and organizations to deal with dysfunctional stress and discusses the possible legal ramifications of work stress.
Part Three continues the direction of the previous section, with an emphasis on specific programs of importance to work organizations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The present trend is to define experimental psychology not in terms of specific content areas, but rather as a study of scientific methodology generally and of the methods of experimentation in particular.
This book has been written to meet this trend.
In short, then, the point of departure for this book is the relatively new conception of experimental psychology in terms of methodology, a conception which represents the bringing together of three somewhat distinct aspects of science: experimental methodology, statistics, and philosophy of science. We have attempted to perform a job analysis of experimental psychology, presenting the important techniques that the experimental psychologist uses every day.
Designed as it is to be practical in the sense of presenting information on those techniques actually used by the working experimental psychologist, it is hoped for this book that it will help maximize transference of performance from a course in experimental psychology to the type of behavior manifested by the professional experimental psychologist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The study of stressful life events and disorder has become a prolific area of research in the past two decades, While a large literature suggests the importance and viability of this approach for studying basic stress and disease relationships, many important assessment issues require reevaluation. In particular, current assessment procedures are characterized by a wide range of varied practices. Given the lack of standardized procedures, combined with the inadequate psychometric properties of the life events instruments themselves, assessment issues may be most important for advancing knowledge of event-illness associations. Alternative approaches to assessing events, particularly taking into consideration the complex associations between events themselves, are outlined in the present paper as examples of assessment strategies that may more accurately reflect the importance of life events. Finally, the implications of such considerations for both theoretical and clinical issues are addressed.
Holmes and Rahe were the first researchers to quantify the “stressfulness” of the items on a life event scale. Although many investigators have described methodological difficulties with the Holmes and Rahe inventory, it continues to be widely used. This paper reviews the criticisms made by a number of authors concerning the Holmes and Rahe instrument in particular, and life event assessment in general. The review examines the empirical evidence supporting such intuitively derived criticisms. Some of the underlying conceptual and measurement issues in assessing life stress via life event scales are questioned. Studies examining the reliability of life event assessment are summarized, and comparisons are made between the reliability of first and second generation scales. Recommendations for future research are made.
Incluye bibliografía e índice
Life changes have been associated with illness onset. The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) records numerical perceptions of the meaning of life events while the Schedule of Recent Experience (SRE) records the frequency of occurrence of life events. Data on these two instruments from 19 studies done in this laboratory have been surveyed and analyzed. They reveal significant variability among groups in their perceptions of life events as well as in their reports of the frequency of occurrence. Variables indicated to be of significance in either or both of these parameters were age, marital status, sex, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, level of education, culture, and experiencing of an event. These variables impose caution on investigations that relate life changes to illness.
Although the Social Readjustment Rating Scale has been a useful stimulant to the study of life change and illness, it has important limitations. The existing scale cannot be used to determine the role of varying types of life changes (e.g., favorable or adverse) in the occurrence of illness. Other problems discussed are ambiguity of items, the confounding of independent and dependent variables, and lack of item specification. Suggestions are made for improved measurement of life change and for more effective study of life change and illness.
The development and use of Holmes and Rahe's Social Readjustment Rating Scale is examined. The scale is regarded as a laudable attempt at ratio measurement and as deserving more attention and emulation in sociology than it has received. However, there are problems with the work of Rahe and his associates. In particular, the relative lack of concern with careful instrument construction and administration, the glossing over of the problem of cultural variance, and the use of analytic procedures that do not fully exploit the potential of their measurement technique are discussed. Data from the authors' exploratory work on the measurement of the stressfulness of life events in a culturally heterogeneous environment are brought into the discussion.
IN PREVIOUS studies [l] it has been established that a cluster of social events requiring change in ongoing life adjustment is significantly associated with the time of illness onset. Similarly, the relationship of what has been called ‘life stress,’ ‘emotional stress,’ ‘object loss,’ etc. and illness onset has been demonstrated by other investigations [2-131. It has been adduced from these studies that this clustering of social or life events achieves etiologic significance as a necessary but not sufficient cause of illness and accounts in part for the time of onset of disease. Methodologically, the interview or questionnaire technique used in these studies has yielded only the number and types of events making up the cluster. Some estimate of the magnitude of these events is now required to bring greater precision to this area of research and to provide a quantitative basis for new epidemiological studies of diseases. This report defines a method which achieves this requisite. METHOD
A relative simple interval scaling method for adjustment to life change events was compared to the original, more difficult, proportinate scaling method. Ranking of life events by both methods was extremely similar. Evidence also was found that today Americans scale several minor life change events as requiring greater adjustment than that estimated for these events a decade earlier.
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The assessment of stress using life event scales Handbook of stress
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Fail to obtain mortgage 20. Death of close family member 21. Unexpected monetary gain 22. Change work responsibilities 23. Disc./modify addictive beh — family 24. Obtain home mortgage 25
- Fired
Fired/laid off/unemployed 19. Fail to obtain mortgage 20. Death of close family member 21. Unexpected monetary gain 22. Change work responsibilities 23. Disc./modify addictive beh — family 24. Obtain home mortgage 25. Retirement 26. Disagreement w/ boss/co-worker
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