THE STUDY of the relationship of life stress to disease has been facilitated greatly over recent years by the development of reliable, quantifiable scales measuring life change. Unlenhuth and Paykel [I], using one of these scales, have confirmed the widely-held view that life events do play an important role in the onset of at least some types of psychiatric disorders. In their study, symptom intensity was directly related to the amount of recent life stress in a primarily neurotic patient population. Stress, however, did not appear to be differentially related to any particular symptom constellation as measured by a 72-item symptom profile comprising five check list factor scores (irascilibity, somatization, compulsiveness, anxiety, depression) [2]. The role of environmental stress in the onset of the more severe psychiatric disturbances; i.e. schizophrenia and affective disorders is in more doubt. The presence or absence of a precipitating event is often quoted as a distinguishing feature between the ‘neuroses’ and the ‘psychoses’ [3]. However, a previous study [4] which used the Holmes-Rahe Social Readjustment Scale as the index of life change was unable to distinguish between endogenous/psychotic depressions and reactive/neurotic depressions with this parameter. Similarly, the position of environmental stress as a precipitant for schizophrenic disorders is unclear. Birley and Brown [5] found a significantly increased number of life-change events within a three-month period preceding the onset of relapse in an acute schizophrenic patient population as compared to controls. Though a similar finding was reported by Laury et al. [6], Beck et al. [7] were unable to identify a clear precipitating event which preceded the admission of schizophrenic patients to an inpatient ward. In a previous study of prognostic factors [8], the senior author found a low but significant correlation between environmental stress and certain types of symptoms (primarily of the neurotic variety) in schizophrenic patients. The purpose of our present study was to compare the amount of life change using the Holmes-Rahe Scale in various diagnostic categories in a mixed inpatient/outpatient psychiatric population. In addition, we wished to investigate within this population the relationship between amount of reported life change stress and various symptoms and personality traits as measured by the Wiggins Content Scales [9] of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) [lo]. These thirteen scales measure relatively homogeneous symptom groupings and provide psychometric measures which are fairly independent of each other; social maladjustment (SOC), depression (DEP), feminine interests (FEM), poor morale (MOR), religious fundamentalism (REL), authority conflict (AUT), psychoticism (PSY), organic symptoms (ORG),