The relationship of recent life change to seriousness of later illness

Abstract

A sample of 313 college freshmen was prospectively studied to determine whether recent life change predicted the seriousness of subsequent illness. Using the Seriousness of Illness Rating Scale as the measure of seriousness, it was found that recent life change correlated at 0.33 with seriousness. This measure of seriousness also correlated with several other measures of severity and seriousness. However, the fact that seriousness was highly correlated (0.80) with the number of new health problems experienced, raises questions about the value of using both as outcome measures in life change research.