Life Change Events Research Articles

Review of Life Change Events Research 1966-1978: An Annotated Bibliography of the Periodical Literature.

Review of Life Change Events Research 1966-1978: An Annotated Bibliography of the Periodical Literature.

Life change events preceding acute psychiatric diseases

A sample of 112 psychiatric inpatients were examined in comparison to 70 somatic inpatients with respect to the question, how frequent psychiatric diseases were in correlation with stressful life-events. There were significant discrepancies concerning life-event stress between the diagnostic subgroups. The life-event stress was most important in the neurotic patients, also patients suffering from endogenous psychoses, especially schizophrenics, showed an increased life-event stress. Different methods (objective stress scores suggested by Paykel, self-rating scores concerning negative experiences, and a synthesis between these two methods) led to similar results. Experiences, rated positive by the patients, showed no correlation with psychiatric diseases.

Life events, familial stress, and coping in the developmental course of schizophrenia.

Recent studies have isolated some socioenvironmental factors that seem to predict the onset of schizophrenic episodes in vulnerable persons. In particular, stressful life events have been found to cluster in the 3- to 4- week period preceding a schizophrenic episode in some patients. Many persons with a schizophrenic disorder also seem to contribute to additional stressful life change events--for example, by high geographic mobility--thereby playing an active role in precipitating the onset of illness episodes. Within the family environment, hostile, critical, and emotionally overinvolved attitudes toward the patient by relatives have been found to be related to relapses. Irregularities in the communication style of parents also predict the subsequent development of schizophrenia spectrum disorders among disturbed adolescents. Many schizophrenic patients also seem to be deficient in the coping skills required to remediate the losses brought on by life events or to deal effectively with stressful relatives. Thus, they may experience greater and more prolonged stress than most others due partially to inadequate social and problem-solving skills and less supportive social networks. These findings have important implications for the design of clinical interventions as well as the development of a comprehensive vulnerability/stress model for the course of schizophrenic disorders.

Adjustment in aging: the roles of life stress, hassles, and self-efficacy.

This study examines the relationship of life stress, daily hassles, and perceived self-efficacy to adjustment in a community sample of 32 men and 32 women between ages 65 and 75. In a structured interview, negative life change events, daily hassles, self-efficacy, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, and negative well being were assessed. Both negative life events and daily hassles were related to psychological distress and physical symptoms for men, and hassles were associated with psychological distress and physical symptoms for women. An inverse relationship between self-efficacy and maladjustment was also found. Hassles showed the most powerful relationship to distress.

Life Change Events as a Predictor of Accident Incidence in a College Population

Life Change Events as a Predictor of Accident Incidence in a College Population

Control, desirability, and anticipation as moderating variables between life change and illness.

A growing body of literature supports a relationship between life change events and illness. The present study is an investigation of cognitive processes which moderate the life change-illness relationship. The moderator variables chosen for this study were perceived control, desirability, and anticipation of life change events. One hundred and twenty-six subjects (65 males, 61 females) reported illness using the Seriousness of Illness Rating Scale, and life change events using the Schedule of Recent Experiences, adapted to collect data on the moderator variables. Correlation coefficients were computed for all conditions reflecting the presence of positive and negative moderator variables. Each of the negative moderator variables was related to significant changes (p less than .05 and p less than .01) in the strength of the life change-illness relationship, with perceived control emerging as a variable with the greatest impact in all cases. Two unexpected findings emerged: (1) The relationship between life change and illness was much stronger for females than for males in all comparisons, and (2) for females only, desirable events were positively related to illness. The evidence of this study supports the contention that stress management strategies should include considerations of cognitive variables which moderate the life change-illness relationship.

Recent life events and accidents: the role of sex differences.

In order to investigate how gender may moderate the manner in which life change affects behavior, 110 men and 54 women who had had industrial accidents were interviewed to assess what life change events they had experienced during the years before and after their injuries. For both sexes, increases in life events and associated stress had occurred prior to their accidents. Females reported higher levels of work-related events two years pre-accident, whereas men experienced a sharp increase in work events one year pre-accident. Post-accident, both males and females reported the greatest number of live changes with men experiencing more medical sequelae and women more separations from spouses and resumption of school. Results are discussed in terms of the possible effects of changing social and sex role expectations.

Stress and the predisposition to sport injuries

Stressful experiences like accidents and close misses produce distinct emotional responses in those going through them. Short-term stressors of this kind make one appreciate the effects long-term stressors must have on one's capacity to adapt and react appropriately and safely to an ever-changing, demanding environment. Acute trauma and injuries are associated with an increased perception of persistent stressful events. Studies of athletes indicate that the risk of injury increases in direct relationship to the accumulation of challenging life change events which demand radical adaptation and coping behaviours from the individual experiencing them. Life change events are situations the individual interprets as overwhelming, threatening, unsatisfying and contradictory. The impact of life change events on psychological dimensions constitutes no simple process; it is complex and multi-factorial. Implications for the prevention and rehabilitation of sport injuries have to be appraised with this back-drop in mind.

Stress Absorbing Systems in Black Families

Upwardly mobile black families were examined in an attempt to ascertain the possible relationships between stress, economic mobility and kin network support within their sociallinteractional systems. Despite high ratings on stress and high frequencies of major life change events most families studied exhibited high levels of satisfaction with family life situations. Families upwardly mobile over three generations and in the highest social status classification had the lowest stress scores. Kin support systems greatly facilitated stress management.

The relationship between life change events, social supports, and dysmenorrhea.

A survey of 156 female undergraduate nursing students was conducted to determine the relationship between life change events and dysmenorrhea and the mediating effect of social supports on this relationship. Data were collected using the Anderson College Schedule of Recent Experience (subjects estimated personal readjustment to life changes), the Moos Menstrual Distress Questionnaire, and a social support index constructed by the authors. Correlations were obtained separately for high and low social support groups; these ranged from .19 to .62 and were significant (p less than .05) for both groups. Presence or absence of a confidant was the most discriminating social support dimension (r = .32 for those with a confidant and .62 for those without). For subjects using oral contraceptives there was no relationship between life change and dysmenorrhea, while users of other contraceptives showed a significant positive relationship (p less than .05). Life change and social supports together accounted for only 16% of the variance in menstrual distress scores. Methodological difficulties in using the life change and social support tools were identified.

Family social support in crises: the special case of divorce.

Using data from a survey of divorced and separated men and women, this study suggests that family help is less likely to be provided when the families are themselves experiencing life change events or disapprove of the divorce decision. Family help does tend to be forthcoming, however, when respondents are simultaneously undergoing other life stressors in addition to the divorce experience.

Life Change and Psychological Distress: The Role of Perceived Control and Desirability

Two studies were conducted to specify what attributes of life change events increase the risk of future psychological distress. It was hypothesized that the events perceived as both undesirable and uncontrollable would be most likely to be linked to subsequent distress. In the fiist study, which employed a retrospective methodology, 117 college students reported the life changes that occurred to them over a 3‐month span and indicated the desirability and controll‐ability of each event. These subjects also responded to an inventory, used in studies of community mental health, to assess symptoms of psychological distress. The findings indicated that only events perceived as both undesirable and uncontrollable were related to the incidence of psychological distress symptoms. Study 2 examined the same hypothesis in a prospective methodology. As in Study 1, only undesirable, uncontrollable life events were significantly related to subsequent psychological distress symptoms. The results of both studies implicate the importance of perceptions of control over aversive events in understanding the link between real life outcomes and illness.

Adjustment to Separation Among Former Cohabiters

A series of hypothesized relationships between adjustment to separation and specified personality, demographic, and situational variables were investigated among 15 men and 35 women who had cohabited a minimum of three months and had since separated. Poorer adjustment was associated with a more traditional sex role orientation, greater discrepancies between self and ideal self, a less satisfying postseparation relationship with one's ex-partner, fewer and less use cf social supports, greater postseparation employment difficulties, and one's partner having initiated the decision to separate. Significant sex differences were found in attitudes toward the cohabiting relationship and its ending. The most useful explanatory concepts in interpreting thc data are the ability 10 control and anticipate life change events, and the persistence of emotional attachment bonds between separating intimates.

Life events and burnout.

A sample of 54 males and 134 females, most of whom were in direct service positions of a counseling and social work nature, was given a battery of instruments, including a measure for burnout (an occupational form of excessive stress), life events, and items concerning satisfaction with work and life in general. The results indicate that negative life change events may promote burnout or aggravate it but positive events will buffer its impact. The outcome implies that reducing negative factors on the job is important but promoting positive events also plays a vital role in reducing the likelihood of its occurrence.

Life events stress, subjective appraisal and somatization in hypertension: a pilot study.

The present pilot study was designed as a multivariate test of stress as a factor in hypertension. A model is proposed that includes family history of hypertension, high life stress exposure, the subjective appraisal of being under considerable stress, and the tendency to somatize stress cardiovascularly. Health risk behaviors frequently implicated in hypertensive disease were also measured. A sample of 76 low income black adults were interviewed privately and classified into two groups on the basis of "no elevated blood pressure readings" or "1 + elevated readings." Univariate comparisons generally supported the hypotheses. Multivariate stepwise discriminant analyses also were conducted as a stricter test of the model. Six factors were identified as the major discriminators between the groups: cardiovascular and renal symptoms, family history of high blood pressure, proportion of negative to total life change events, and electrodermal and gastrointestinal somatic reactions. Age and positive life stress experiences were also important discriminators.

Moderator variables for the relationship between life change and disorders.

The correlation between life change events and occurrence of disorders was investigated with the use of moderator variable measures of Jungian types, health locus of control, and optimal stimulation level. One hundred and twenty-four graduate and undergraduate men and women at Oregon College of Education were Ss. The following levels of moderator variables produced significant correlations: Introvert, Thinking, Feeling, Judgment, rational functions, and external health locus of control. The suggested rationale for integrating these findings is that high correlations between life change events and occurrence of disorders result from low levels of awareness and limited choices, accompanied by high degrees of conditionability.

What do you get when you fall in love? Some health status effects

Abstract Students of the effects of life change events on health have asked for studies in which single, desirable, life events that are appropriate to the life stage of the population sampled are examined in relation to health status. We do this with a single event — romantic involvement — that moves through a number of phases. We found in our college student sample that adverse health reactions are more likely to occur among those who have never been in love or who have been in love more than three times; among those involved in a relationship of two to six months duration as opposed to a shorter or longer period; among those who have just broken up a relationship; among those who attribute the break‐up mainly to the other person; and among those who, having broken up, have not found a new romantic interest, or have plunged deeply into a new relationship. Some of the results are moderated by interaction effects with sex of respondent.

A study of the relationship between adolescent pregnancy and life-change events.

(1981). A Study of the Relationship Between Adolescent Pregnancy and life-Change Events. Issues in Mental Health Nursing: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 219-236.

Simplified scaling for life change events.

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.

Power Motivation, Stress and Physical Illness

College students reporting a large number of life change events in the past six months also reported significantly more frequent and more severe instances of physical illness and more affective symptoms in the same time period. These relationships, however, were modified in an interesting way by type of life change and by individual differences. Life change events were classified as involving power, affiliative or other stresses. Individuals scoring high in the need for Power (n Power), in inhibition, and in the number of power stresses (HHH subjects), reported more severe physical illness and affective symptoms than all other subjects or, in particular, subjects low in n Power, power stress and inhibition (LLL subjects). Individuals scoring high in Power and high in either inhibition or power stress also reported significantly more severe physical illness than other subjects. Among subjects high in inhibition, affiliative stress in combination with high n Power was associated with more severe physical illness, but, among subjects low in inhibition, affiliative stress in combination with high n Affiliation was associated with more physical illness. Affiliative stress was unrelated to affective symptoms. Other stress was unrelated either alone or in combination with other variable to physical illness or affective symptoms. The findings are interpreted as consistent with the hypothesis that subjects in the HHH category compared with other subjects are characterized by chronically high sympathetic activity which has immunosuppressive effects, making them more illness prone.