life events and difficulties schedule
adaptation and validation of the life events and difficulties schedule for use with high school dropouts .
adaptation and validation of the life events and difficulties schedule for use with high school dropouts. - pubmed - ncbi
the computerised life events assessment record (clear) is under development as a tool for online assessment of adult life events. based on the life events and difficulties schedule interview, clear seeks to assess life events to self and close others, link these to other events and difficulties, and utilize calendar - based timing, to improve upon checklist approaches .
costello cg, devins gm. two - staged screening for stressful events and chronic difficulties .
white, kevin .
life events and difficulties schedule .
in the sage dictionary of health and society, 127 - 128. london: sage publications ltd, 2006. doi: 10. 4135 / 9781446215159. n494 .
white, k. (2006). life events and difficulties schedule. in the sage dictionary of health and society (pp. 127 - 128). london: sage publications ltd doi: 10. 4135 / 9781446215159. n494
broadhead j c, abas m a. life events, difficulties and depression among women in an urban setting in zimbabwe .
white, k 2006,' life events and difficulties schedule', in the sage dictionary of health and society, sage publications ltd, london, pp. 127 - 128, viewed 9 july 2018, doi: 10. 4135 / 9781446215159. n494 .
kendler k s, neale m, kessler r, heath a, eaves l. a twin study of recent life events and difficulties .
white, kevin .
life events and difficulties schedule .
the sage dictionary of health and society. london: sage publications ltd, 2006. 127 - 128. sage knowledge. web. 9 jul. 2018, doi: 10. 4135 / 9781446215159. n494 .
farmer anne e, mcguffin peter. humiliation, loss and other types of life events and difficulties: a comparison of depressed subjects, healthy controls and their siblings .
ormel j, oldehinkel aj, brilman ei. the interplay and etiological continuity of neuroticism, difficulties, and life events in the etiology of major and subsyndromal, first and recurrent depressive episodes in later life .
ormel j, oldehinkel a j, brilman e i. the interplay and etiological continuity of neuroticism, difficulties, and life events in the etiology of major and subsyndromal, first and recurrent depressive episodes in later life .
monroe sm, slavich gm, torres ld, gotlib ih. major life events and major chronic difficulties are differentially associated with history of major depressive episodes .
meaning, measurement, and stress of life events. in dohrenwend bs, dohrenwend bp. editors. stressful life events, their nature and effects .
the clear “stress online: developing a reliable and valid interactive online method for measuring stressful life events and difficulties” project is funded by the economic and social research council (esrc es / k00638x / 1) .
﻿ * pcs2 leds data are complete for life events only. due to restructuring of the laboratory that conducted the leds scoring, data on difficulties are not available .
zautra aj, reich jw. life events and perceptions of life quality: developments in a two - factor approach .
dohrenwend bs, krasnoff l, askenasy ar, dohrenwend bp. exemplification of method for scaling life events: the peri life events scale .
dohrenwend bs, krasnoff l, askenasy ar, dohrenwend bp. exemplification of a method for scaling life events: the peri life events scale .
tennant c. life events, stress, and depression: a review of the findings .
there is currently no sophisticated technological application of social risk factor assessment, such as life events and difficulties. clear is designed to gather reliable and valid life - event data while combating the limitations of interviews (eg, time consuming and costly) and life - event checklists (eg, inability to accurately measure severity and independence of life events). the advantages of using such innovative methodology for research, clinical practice, and interventions are discussed .
grant i, gerst m, yager j. scaling of life events by psychiatric patients and normals .
norman rmg, malla ak. stressful life events and schizophrenia i: a review of the research .
brown gw, harris to, hepworth c. life events and endogenous depression: a puzzle reexamined .
it is also hoped that the clear approach to assessing life events and difficulties will aid those in clinical practice. the provision of recent life charts of events labeled in terms of their likely stressful nature and with attributes relating to loss, danger, humiliation, and entrapment will allow clinicians to consider the level of stressor experienced in seeking to estimate patient appraisal and coping capacity .
vinokur a, selzer ml. desirable versus undesirable life events: their relationship to stress and mental distress .
hunt n, bruce - jones w, silverstone t. life events and relapse in bipolar affective disorder .
life stress was assessed from 1 year before the onset of depression up to the day of the interview using the life events and difficulties schedule (leds; brown and harris, 1978). this system first employs a 2 - hour semistructured interview in which the interviewer systematically inquires about potential stressors. next, the interviewer presents the reported events and chronic difficulties to a panel of raters who judge each stressor using a 520 - page manual that outlines explicit rules and criteria for rating life stress. the manual also includes 5000 case vignettes that are used as anchors in the rating process. ratings are finalized after a consensus discussion that considers extensive information about the stressor, the context surrounding the stressor, and the individual’s biographic circumstances (i. e. , “contextual” ratings; brown and harris, 1978, 1989) .
brown gw, birley jlt. crises and life changes and the onset of schizophrenia .
brown gw, bifulco a, harris to. life events, vulnerability and onset of depression: some refinements .
brown gw, harris to. life events and measurement. in: brown gw, harris to, editors .
links between life events and clinical disorders have a long history, given the fact that stressful life events are an important predictor of the onset and course of various disorders across the life span, including depression, eating disorders, and psychosis [ 1 - 5 ]. in addition, long - term stressors (difficulties) play an important role in the onset and maintenance of disorder, notably depression, but these are often overlooked [ 6, 7 ] .
cohen l, towbes l, flocco r. effects of induced mood on self - reported life events and perceived and received social support .
( 1) to argue that life events need sophisticated measurement not satisfactorily captured in checklist approaches. (2) to review life - events measures and key findings related to disorder, exemplifying depression. (3) to describe an ongoing study with a new online measure and to assess its psychometric properties and the association of life events in relation to disorder and educational outcomes .
johnson jh, bradlyn as. assessing stressful life events in childhood and adolescence. in: karoly p, editor .
kendler ks, karkowski lm, prescott ca. causal relationship between stressful life events and the onset of major depression .
goodyer im, altman pme. lifetime exit events and recent social and family adversities in anxious and depressed school - age children and adolescents—i .
goodyer im, altman pme. lifetime exit events and recent social and family adversities in anxious and depressed school - age children and adolescents—ii .
brown gw. meaning, measurement, and stress of life events. in: dohrenwend bs, dohrenwend bp, editors .
brugha ts, cragg d. the list of threatening experiences: the reliability and validity of a brief life events questionnaire .
raphael kg, cloitre m, dohrenwend bp. problems of recall and misclassification with checklist methods of measuring stressful life events .
brugha ts, cragg d. the list of threatening experiences: the reliability and validity of a brief life events questionnaire .
rahe rh, arthur rj. life change and illness studies: past history and future directions .
brown gw, sklair f, harris to, birley jlt. life events and psychiatric disorders: i. some methodological issues .
faravelli c, ambonetti a. assessment of life events in depressive disorders: a comparison of three methods .
brett jf, brief ap, burke mj, george jm, webster j. negative affectivity and the reporting of stressful life events .
raphael k g, cloitre m, dohrenwend b p. problems of recall and misclassification with checklist methods of measuring stressful life events .
dohrenwend bp. stressful life events and psychopathology: some issues of theory and method. in: barrett jf, rose rm, et al. , editors .
mazure cm, bruce ml, maciejewski pk, jacobs sc. adverse life events and cognitive - personality characteristics in the prediction of major depression and antidepressant response .
the first observations concerning life events occurred in the early 20th century in the clinical field when understanding the experience of depressed patients [ 65 ], with meyer the first to create life charts to document events linked to disorder [ 66 ]. thus, clinical approaches as a basis for treatment were an original driver for investigating life events and depression, and a need still exists in modern approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy [ 67 ] where understanding individual appraisal and response to events is critical to effect cognitive and behavioral change. having easy access to sophisticated measures of life events are therefore of potential help to clinicians and could be used in combination with tailored digital health interventions; for example, cognitive behavioral therapy packages formulated to be used in response to severe life events occurring within an individual’s life .
monroe sm, harkness kl. life stress, the “kindling” hypothesis, and the recurrence of depression: considerations from a life stress perspective .
klein dn, rubovits dr. the reliability of subjects’ reports on stressful life events inventories: a longitudinal study .
neugebauer r. the reliability of life - events reports. in: dohrenwend bs, dohrenwend bp, editors .
schless ap, schwartz l, goetz c, mendels j. how depressives view the significance of life events .
williams cl, uchiyama c. assessment of life events during adolescence: the use of self - report inventories .
pine ds, cohen p, johnson jg, brook js. adolescent life events as predictors of adult depression .
dohrenwend bp. problems in defining and sampling the relevant population of stressful life events. in: dohrenwend bs, dohrenwend bp, editors .
lennon mc, dohrenwend bp, zautra az, marbach jj. coping and adaption to facial pain in contrast to other stressful life events .
theorell t. life events before and after the onset of a premature myocardial infarction. in: dohrenwend bs, dohrenwend bp, editors .
zimmerman m, pfohl b, stangl d. life events assessment of depressed patients: a comparison of self - report and interview formats .
dohrenwend bp, shrout pe. “hassles” in the conceptualization and measurement of life stress variables”
rutter m. meyerian psychobiology, personality development, and the role of life experiences .
wittchen hu, essau ca, hecht h, teder w, pfister h. reliability of life event assessments: test - retest reliability and fall - off effects of the munich interview for the assessment of life events and conditions .
grant i, sweetwood hl, yager j, gerst m. quality of life events in relation to psychiatric symptoms .
dohrenwend bp. inventorying stressful life events as risk factors for psychopathology: toward resolution of the problem of intracategory variability .
keller mc, neale mc, kendler ks. association of different adverse life events with distinct patterns of depressive symptoms .
thoits pa. dimensions of life events that influence psychological distress: an evaluation and synthesis of the literature. in: kaplan hb, editor .
beards s, gayer - anderson c, borges s, dewey me, fisher hl, morgan c. life events and psychosis: a review and meta - analysis .
test - retest reliability of clear will be undertaken using an additional 20 undergraduates, 20 depression cases, and 20 controls from each of the samples, measured an optimal 3 - 4 weeks apart for stability in reporting (using cohen kappa and icc). clear will be tested on the remaining participants (n = 285) and the rates and types of life events and difficulties reported in the 3 samples will be compared and analyzed in relation to sex, social class, and age using chi - square statistics. the association between life events and past / recent depressive disorder and physical illness (decc sample), and academic performance (undergraduate sample) will be tested using logistic regression to look at the contribution of life events and indicators of social disadvantage to health and educational outcomes. once both reliability and validity of clear have been determined, the program will be available for more general use .
sarason ig, johnson jh, siegel jm. assessing the impact of life changes: development of the life experiences survey .
shrout p, link bg, dohrenwend bp, skodol ae, stueve a, mirotznik g. characterizing life events as risk factors for depression: the role of fateful loss events .
dohrenwend bs, dohrenwend bp, dodson m, shrout pe. symptoms, hassles, social supports and life events: the problem of confounded measures .
wittchen h u, essau c a, hecht h, teder w, pfister h. reliability of life event assessments: test - retest reliability and fall - off effects of the munich interview for the assessment of life events and conditions .
levav i, krasnoff l, dohrenwend bs. israeli peri life event scale: ratings of events by a community sample .
dohrenwend bruce p. inventorying stressful life events as risk factors for psychopathology: toward resolution of the problem of intracategory variability .
lloyd c, alexander a a, rice d g, greenfield n s. life events as predictors of academic performance .
three - phase design for comparing reliability and validity of checklist and stem question screening instruments for measuring major stressful events .
kanner ad, coyne jc, schaefer c, lazarus rs. comparison of two modes of stress measurement: daily hassles and uplifts versus major life events .
lewinsohn pm, rohde p, gau jm. comparability of self - report checklist and interview data in the assessment of stressful life events in young adults .
using data collected from the leds, we derived several measures of major stressful life events. we selected events based on the leds classification of provoking agents. provoking agents are defined as events that have a severity rating of 1 or 2 and directly involve the respondent or the respondent and another person or persons .
the life events and difficulties schedule (leds) is considered the standard for measuring psychosocial stressor exposure, but it has not been used with academically at - risk adolescents, including high school dropouts. the goal of this study was to (1) adapt the leds for use with this population, and (2) examine the reliability (interrater) and validity (concurrent and predictive) of this adaptation among a sample of vulnerable adolescents (n = 545). good reliability coefficients (. 79 -. 90) were obtained, and stressor exposure was associated with concurrent criteria indexing mental health outcomes (depression) and major risk factors for dropout (administratively recorded and self - reported). also, leds scores predicted dropout beyond these risk factors. the adapted leds appears useful for describing academically struggling adolescents' stressor exposure .
in the present study, we use a state - of - the art interview - based measure of life stress with a sample of adults diagnosed with mdd to address 2 of the distinct limitations of previous research. first, we attempt to replicate the findings of previous studies, which have demonstrated that exposure to a severe life event before the onset of depression is associated with greater overall severity of depression (hammen et al. , 1992; monroe et al. , 1992). we also examine the relation between severe life events and specific classes of depressive symptoms (i. e. , cognitive and somatic symptoms), as suggested by persons (1986) and costello (1993). consistent with previous research, we predict that individuals who have experienced an acute major negative life event before the onset of depression will report greater overall severity of depression, and more intense cognitive symptoms of depression, than will their counterparts without such stress. in a similar vein, we also examine the relation between major negative life events and level of global functioning. second, we examine the relation between preonset chronic difficulties and depressive symptomatology to contribute to the sparse literature on chronic stress and depression. in a manner parallel to the life events analyses, we also test the association between chronic difficulties and specific classes of symptoms. consistent with previous work by mcgonagle and kessler (1990), we predict that individuals who have experienced a major chronic difficulty will report greater overall severity of depression than will individuals without such difficulties. given the absence of relevant empirical research and theory for making predictions concerning the relations between chronic difficulties and specific depressive symptoms and level of global functioning, we make no predictions and instead conduct descriptive analyses of these associations .
turner rj, wheaton b. checklist measurement of stressful life events. in: cohen s, et al. , editors .
tennant c, bebbington p, hurry j. the role of life events in depressive illness: is there a substantial causal relation ?
zuckerman l, oliver jm, hollingsworth hh, austrin hr. a comparison of life events scoring methods as predictors of psychological symptomatology .
in the present investigation we found severity of depression and global functioning to be associated with exposure to preonset severe life events, but not with exposure to preonset severe difficulties. thus, although both acute and chronic stressors often precede depression, only acute stress was found to be associated with the clinical characteristics of this disorder. these findings highlight the potential specificity with which stress influences key clinical aspects of depression .
bebbington p, tennant c, stuart e, hurry j. the domain of life events: a comparison of two techniques of description .
both pcs1 and pcs2 contain variables identifying provoking agent events within each of the aforementioned 10 domains, as well as the total number of provoking agent events across all domains. pcs1 also contains variables indicating the total number of negative life stressors (leds. negev _ tot; includes both events with ratings of 1, 2, or 3 and all difficulties irrespective of threat rating) as well as information on the duration of individual life events (see pcs1 data codebook for these and other leds event variables .) the table below lists the events variables included in the data set along with the leds construct they represent (if applicable) and a brief definition. all variables are available in 2 forms: as a dichotomous variable indicating whether an event meeting the definition occured and as a continuous variable indicating the total number of occurrences of that type of event .
almost four decades ago, holmes and rahe (1967) published a checklist of 43 events, such as death of a spouse, divorce, fired at work, and sex difficulties, called the schedule of recent experiences (sre). its purpose was to inventory “fundamentally important environmental incidents” (meyer, 1951, p. 53) that were found (in analyses of patients’ charts) to frequently precede illness onsets. stressful events were defined as occurrences that were likely to bring about readjustment - requiring changes in people’s usual activities. a magnitude estimation procedure was used by panels of judges to assign life change unit (lcu) scores to each of the 43 events on the list (holmes & rahe, 1967). a summation of these scores on events occurring in a given, usually quite recent, period of time was taken as the indicator of amount of stress. the checklist can be answered in either a self - administered questionnaire or an interview .
this paper argues that life events are complex phenomena not currently served by the most commonly used measurement approach, that is, checklists. this is potentially damaging research investigating the etiology of depression: problematic measurement must surely lead to problematic results. it is hoped that clear’s technological advances will produce a useful compromise between life - event checklists and interview approaches, overcoming some of the limitations of questionnaires while reducing the burden inherent in face - to - face interviews. clear should have the capacity to capture life - event details and context, different attributes of the event, timing of the event, and linkages between events and difficulties. although it will not provide exhaustive coverage of all possible events, it is presumed that the majority of events will be captured and that most respondents will be able to rate the bulk of their events accurately given the guidance provided through the menus, examples, and appropriate benchmarking. thus, this new method of measuring life events may be able to gather high - quality data, hopefully with reliability and validity comparable to the gold - standard interview approach, overcoming the problems inherent in relying on checklist approaches in etiological research .
goodman la, corcoran c, turner k, yuan n, green bl. assessing traumatic event exposure: general issues and preliminary findings for the stressful life events screening questionnaire .
dohrenwend bp, link bg, kern r, shrout pe, markowitz j. measuring life events: the problem of variability within event categories .
dohrenwend bp, link bg, kern bg, shrout r, markowitz j. measuring life events: the problem of variability within event categories .
monroe sm, slavich gm, torres ld, gotlib ih. severe life events predict specific patterns of change in cognitive biases in major depression .
gorman dm. a review of studies comparing checklist and interview methods of data collection in life event research .
norris fh. epidemiology of trauma: frequency and impact of different potentially traumatic events on different demographic groups .
stueve a, dohrenwend bp, skodol ae. relationships between stressful life events and episodes of major depression and nonaffective psychotic disorders: selected results from a new york risk factor study. in: dohrenwend bp, editor .
goodman l a, corcoran c, turner k, yuan n, green b l. assessing traumatic event exposure: general issues and preliminary findings for the stressful life events screening questionnaire .
monroe sm, harkness kl, simons ad, thase me. life stress and the symptoms of major depression .
is designed for the purposes of (a) comparing the major stressful events and their characteristics identified by each screening instrument to the major stressful events and their characteristics identified by the other screening instrument, as well as (b) testing the ability of each screening instrument to identify the major stressful events and their important characteristics elicited and measured by the full intensive interview and narrative ratings from phase 3. the results would be relevant for retrospective research over the life course or long periods of the life course. as noted earlier, such research must rely on personal interviews and life calendar aids to recall. additional tests of the two types of screening instruments could be developed for different purposes; for example, the study of minor and major events longitudinally in relation to the onset and recurrent course of major depression. if particularly sensitive events were to be investigated, especially with children or adolescents (
norris f h. epidemiology of trauma: frequency and impact of different potentially traumatic events on different demographic groups .
major life events and chronic difficulties have been found to be associated with the onset of depression. little is known, however, about how exposure to such stressors is related to the clinical presentation of this disorder. we addressed this issue by administering an interview - based measure of life stress, the beck depression inventory, and the global assessment of functioning scale to 100 adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder. participants who experienced a preonset severe life event exhibited greater overall levels of depression severity, endorsed more cognitive and somatic symptoms of depression, and functioned at lower levels than did their counterparts without preonset severe life events. in contrast, exposure to a preonset severe difficulty was unrelated to participants’ severity of depression, cognitive and somatic symptoms, or level of global functioning. these findings highlight the potentially greater importance of acute stress compared with chronic stress for influencing these key clinical features of depression .
this paper outlines the ineffective measurement of life events in many contemporary research studies. it also presents a new online computerized approach—computerised life events assessment record (clear) —designed to optimize interview advantages while incurring low cost and being time effective. the ongoing development and future testing of clear will be outlined with a focus on clinical health. it is expected that this new online method will offer an enhanced but readily available life - event measure with important implications for studying disorders .
kendler k s, karkowski l m, prescott c a. the assessment of dependence in the study of stressful life events: validation using a twin design .
katschnig h. measuring life stress—a comparison of the checklist and the panel technique. in: katschnig h, editor .
monroe sm, kupfer dj, frank e. life stress and treatment outcomes: i. response during index episode .
the extreme situation end of the continuum of usual activities is characterized far more by chronic stressors or ongoing difficulties that make severe and continuing demands on individuals. events in such extreme situations need to be assessed not only for their impact on usual activities of the extreme situations but also on the activities in the more usual situations to which the individuals may return—as, for example, the return of a veteran to civilian life after service in a war zone .
frank e, anderson b, reynolds cf, iii, ritenour a, kupfer dj. life events and the research diagnostic criteria endogenous subtype. a confirmation of the distinction using the bedford college methods .
johnson sheri l, cueller amy k, ruggero camilo, winett - perlman carol, goodnick paul, white richard, miller ivan. life events as predictors of mania and depression in bipolar i disorder .
zimmerman m, o’hara mw, corenthal cp. symptom contamination of life event scales .
due to a restructuring of the laboratory that conducted the leds scoring, data on chronic difficulties are only available for pcs1. to be identified as a difficulty, a chronic stressor must have lasted 1 month or longer; could not have ended more than 6 months prior to viral challenge; and had a contextual severity rating of 1, 2, or 3 (q6 criterion cited in codebook). in addition, if the chronic stressor was health - related, it needed to have resulted in at least one of the following outcomes (q4 criterion cited in codebook): major role change (e. g. , giving up job); major caring responsibility (e. g. , constant care or supervision of another); major stigma or embarrassment (e. g. , hiv + status, severe mental handicap). among the several difficulties variables included in the pcs1 data set are total number of difficulties lasting 1 month or longer, 6 months or longer, and 24 months or longer. difficulties also are categorized based on whether they are interpersonal in nature (see pcs1 data codebook) .
kendler ks, kessler rc, walters ee, maclean c, neale mc, heath ac, et al. stressful life events, genetic liability, and onset of an episode of major depression in women .
prior to being administered the leds, participants completed a brief demographic interview (pcs1, pcs2). the interview was designed to collect information that would facilitate raters’ judgments of the contextual threat associated with participants’ experienced life events and difficulties. this information includes conventional sociodemographic information such as age, sex, race, and marital status, as well as data on childhood experiences such as birth order, religious upbringing, and whether the respondent attended a traditional grade school or boarding school. the leds demographics interview also collects some information on social relationships such as number of children and grandchildren, number of friends, and number of confidants .
asap, the automated stress assessment program, is a quick and reliable way to assess acute life events and chronic difficulties that occurred over the past year. based on gold - standard, interview - based methodologies for assessing stress, this computer - based program systematically inquires about potential sources of stress in several domains of functioning (e. g. , work, school, financial, interpersonal, etc). probes regarding stressor severity, frequency, timing, and duration are accompanied by additional questions that probe the extent to which participants’ ruminated over the stressors and felt as though they had control over the stressors. biographical details about the individual and contextual information about each life stressor are also collected. the information is used to calculate the final life stress ratings, which are computed automatically by the program .
as noted earlier, the best - known example of a narrative - rating method is the life events and difficulties schedule (leds) developed by brown and colleagues (e. g. , brown & harris, 1978). leds has been used more frequently abroad than in the united states (e. g. , brown & harris, 1989), but it, or variations of it, have been adopted by a number of u. s. investigators in recent years (duggal et al. , 2000; frank, anderson, reynolds, ritenour, & kupfer, 1994; garber, keiley, & martin, 2002; goodyer & altman, 1991a, 1991b; hammen, 1991; kendler, hettema, butera, gardner, & prescott, 2003; mcquaid, monroe, roberts, kupfer, & frank, 2000; monroe, kupfer, & frank, 1992; rudolph & hammen, 1999) .
with respect to severe life events in relation to cognitive and somatic symptoms of depression, we predicted that the presence of a severe life event before the onset of depression would be associated specifically with elevated cognitive symptoms of depression. this prediction was validated both among participants who completed the bdi - ia ,
dohrenwend bp. the role of adversity and stress in psychopathology: some evidence and its implications for theory and research .
dyrbye liselotte n, thomas matthew r, huntington jefrey l, lawson karen l, novotny paul j, sloan jeff a, shanafelt tait d. personal life events and medical student burnout: a multicenter study .
meyer a. the life chart and the obligation of specifying positive data in psychopathogical diagnosis. in: winters eg, editor .
monroe sm, kupfer d, frank e. life stress and treatment course in recurrent depression 1: response during index episode .
since the publication of this economical measurement procedure, the sre, a tremendous increase has occurred in the construction of such measures and in quantitative research on relations between inventoried life events and health. for example, a search of the terms life events, life change, stressful life events, and life stress (or a combination of these terms) using psycinfo (urltoken) shows an increasing rate of publications on these topics, from 292 in the decade of 1967 to 1976, to 2, 126 in 1977 to 1986, to 4, 269 in 1987 to 1996, to 3, 341 in the truncated 1997 to 2005 portion of the present decade. this voluminous literature documents that life events are related to a wide variety of physical and psychological problems in both cross - sectional and longitudinal research (e. g. , breslau, 2002; brown & harris, 1989; dohrenwend & dohrenwend, 1974; grant, compas, thurm, mcmahon, & gipson, 2004; gunderson & rahe, 1974; paykel, 1974; rahe & arthur, 1978) .
how much can be accomplished with economically closed questions and closed probes to identify stressful events and measure their important characteristics needs to be empirically investigated. this investigation could be done by comparing and contrasting types of checklist approaches on their ability to screen the events of interest and to measure their important characteristics in samples of respondents from relevant populations of interest. if the interest is in major stressful events, then the focus could be on the occurrence of such events over the full life course. for life course coverage, personal interviews would be indicated, because dating, preferably with the aid of life calendar procedures, would be required. a field experiment designed to test the contrasting screening measures could involve data collection in three phases of increasingly more labor - intensive methods as shown in
in “characterizing life events as risk factors for depression: the role of fateful loss events” by p. e. shrout, b. g. link, b. p. dohrenwend, a. e. skodol, a. stueve, & g. mirotznik .
jenkins cd, hurst mw, rose rm. life changes: do people really remember ?
tennant c, andrews g. the pathogenic quality of life event stress in neurotic impairment .
to determine whether participants experienced a severe acute event and / or a severe chronic difficulty during the last year. acute events have durations of less than 1 month, with most lasting only hours or minutes (e. g. , a severe reprimand at work or a fight with a spouse). difficulties typically last a month or more and involve the disruption of everyday routines (e. g. , ongoing marital problems or unemployment) .
paykel es. life stress and psychiatric disorder: applications of the clinical approach. in: dohrenwend bs, dohrenwend bp, editors .
dohrenwend bp, raphael kg, schwartz s, stueve a, skodol ae. the structured event probe and narrative rating method (seprate) for measuring stressful life events. in: goldberger l, breznitz s, editors .
kubany es, haynes sn, leisen mb, owens ja, kaplan as, watson sb, et al. development and preliminary validation of a brief broad - spectrum measure of trauma exposure: the traumatic life events questionnaire .
). as an alternative test, we examined the relation between severe difficulties rated 1 to 4, but which were present for a minimum of 2 years (i. e. , instead of 1 year), and depression symptom severity. the presence of a severe difficulty defined in this way was unrelated to depression severity ,
1. brown, g. w. , & harris, t. o. (eds .). (1989). life events and illness. new york: guilford press. 2. harris, t. o. (1991). life stress and illness: the question of specificity. annals of behavioral medicine, 13, 211 - 219 .
sarason ig, sarason br. life change, social support, coping and health. in: kaplan rm, mh criqui, editors .
breslau n, davis gc, andreski p, peterson e. traumatic events and posttraumatic stress disorder in an urban population of young adults .
the data generated will be rated blind / reviewed by separate researchers and compared using cohen kappa and intraclass correlation coefficients (iccs) for level of agreement between the 2 methods. the total number of life events captured, the domain category, severity rating, and the timing of events will be compared to give an indication of how well clear mimics the in - person method for full reporting and recall. any further modifications will be made to clear if required .
the main alternative approach, unlike traditional checklists, involves intensive, time - consuming, and expensive semistructured interviews to obtain detailed narrative information about life events that facilitates judgments by trained raters of the important characteristics of the events. these narrative - rating procedures are far superior to traditional checklists in reliability and validity. however, the gains are bought at tremendous loss in economy, and narrative - rating measures are rarely used .
yager j, grant i, sweetwood hl, gerst m. life event reports by psychiatric patients, non - patients, and their partners .
monroe sm, mcquaid jr. measuring life stress and assessing its impact on mental health. in: avison wr, gotlib ih, editors .
kasch kl, rottenberg j, arnow ba, gotlib ih. behavioral activation and inhibition systems and the severity and course of depression .
severe life events are acknowledged as important etiological factors in the development of clinical disorders, including major depression. interview methods capable of assessing context and meaning of events have demonstrated superior validity compared with checklist questionnaire methods and arguments for interview approaches have resurfaced because choosing the appropriate assessment tool provides clarity of information about gene - environment interactions in depression. such approaches also have greater potential for understanding and treating clinical cases or for use in interventions .
monroe sm, slavich gm, georgiades k. the social environment and life stress in depression. in: gotlib ih, hammen cl, editors .
3. wethington, e. , brown, g. w. , & kessler, r. c. (1995). interview measurement of stressful life events. measuring stress: a guide for health and social scientists, 59 - 79 .
difficulties with recall can be a problem for both interview and checklist methodology, even over a 12 - month period [ 24 ]. comparisons of longitudinal and cross - sectional studies demonstrate that more events are reported longitudinally than retrospectively [ 57 ]. however, using web - based systems to conduct prospective longitudinal assessments may be a lower resource - intensive method of obtaining detailed descriptions of psychopathology processes over time [ 58 ]. in addition, when clear is used retrospectively, recall may be aided as respondents can edit their responses and can complete it over a few sittings and see their own calendar of events before finalizing sequences. studies have found that respondents who initially fail to report serious events, when given more time to think after initial prompting trigger greater recall or appraisal of the event [ 59 ] .
, the findings are surprising. the modal ratings of the narratives describing the events in these categories were
given the personal, social, and economic costs of mdd, much research has focused on identifying factors that may underlie the development of depression. one such variable, the experience of stress, is thought to be an important risk factor for the disorder. research on life stress and depression has focused to a large extent on the role that life events–and in particular, acute negative life events–play in the onset of mdd. in this context, severe acute life events that possess a high degree of threat and unpleasantness, such as the death of a spouse or loss of an important job, have been found consistently to precede the onset of depression (hammen, 2005; kessler, 1997; monroe et al. , 2008; paykel, 2003). this association seems to be especially robust when interview - based measures of life stress are used (hammen, 2005), although most studies in this area have used event checklist measures of stress, for which the limitations are well documented (e. g. , dohrenwend, 2006). nonetheless, there is now evidence of a causal relation between acute negative life events and the onset of depression (kendler et al. , 1999), establishing the importance of such stressors for understanding the disorder .
foley d l, neale m c, kendler k s. a longitudinal study of stressful life events assessed at interview with an epidemiological sample of adult twins: the basis of individual variation in event exposure .
each stem menu of events leads down a path until the options are no longer relevant. however, at each stage, the respondent is given the option of rating “something else / other. ” in this way, stressful events that do not fit into proscribed categories or criteria can also be included. this ensures that the specification of events does not make the definition of events too narrow [ 56 ] .
the timing of events is critical to determining their etiological role in depression onset. events that occur after onset can only have a maintenance role at best. therefore, precise timing of events is required. in addition, other important stressors are chronic, with severity levels that can vary over time. these are termed “difficulties” and comprise problematic situations, which last 4 weeks or more, and can go on for years. these can occur in as many domains as events, and can be antecedent or consequent to the event. an important analysis of such linkages showed that an event preceded by a severe difficulty (hence “matched”) for at least 6 months and in the same domain greatly increased the risk of depression onset [ 6 ]. in this case, the potential for entrapment or an erosion of hope can add to the burden of the ongoing problem (eg, a partner’s demand for a divorce in the context of a conflictual marriage; or a failed attempt at rehousing in the ongoing problem of serious overcrowding). using these criteria, women with a severe event “matching” a difficulty had a threefold greater chance of developing depression [ 6 ]. questionnaire measurement cannot reflect such links and is imprecise regarding the timing of the event in relation to onset of disorder. severe events of etiological importance occur within 6 months of onset and often within half of that time [ 35 ]. in addition, the effects of life events gradually decay over time, with the strongest effect in the month immediately following the life event with some variation by event type [ 2, 36 ]. without knowing the timing of events, any precision is lost, which restricts the causal attribution of life events to disorder [ 37 ] and the investigation of specific stressors for different disorder outcomes [ 38 ] .
: early adversity (i. e. , before age 18) and recent life stress (i. e. , past 1 - 2 years )
drasch k, matthes b. improving retrospective life course data by combining modularized self - reports and event history calendars: experiences from a large scale survey .
life - event interviews also categorize “independence” of the event. this is the extent to which the event is likely to be separate from the actions, planning, or control of the individual, that is, it occurs externally to the individual. independence allows researchers and clinicians to estimate whether the event is a cause or consequence of disorder. for example, losing a job because the employer has gone bankrupt would be judged totally independent outside of personal control; personal health events are “nearly totally” independent, interactions with close others only “possibly independent, ” and intentional acts as “nonindependent” [ 9 ]. events that are a part of the depression itself or its treatment (suicide attempt or psychiatric hospital admission) are rated as “least independent” and termed “illness related. ” genetically sensitive twin studies of depression and life events have described genetic influences for nonindependent events, but not for independent events [ 39 ]. both relate to depression .
respondents complete clear by providing demographic information; information about close others; and life events and difficulties over the past year in 12 domains (education, work, reproduction, housing, money, crime, health, romantic, other relationships, children, death, and miscellaneous). the assessment also includes a fixed battery of measures, a depression questionnaire (general health questionnaire, ghq, [ 52 ]), and an interpersonal vulnerability questionnaire (vulnerable attachment style questionnaire, vasq [ 53 ]). however, for projects tailored to other research questions, the integrated calendar system can be used to record events over a greater observation period, and paper or electronic questionnaires can be used in addition to clear. the information is provided through a mixture of checklists for closed answers, text boxes for open - ended answers, and logic - driven checklist menus. clear also contains a feedback system that allows for a personalized calendar, menus, and references to specified close others .
among the different in - person semistructured interviews, probably the most widely used is the leds [ 9, 27 ]. this approach encourages narrative accounts of events that can elicit the full social context, their timing, and sequence in relation to disorder onset. leds encapsulates a large range of events to the self and close others. it deals with the likely meaning of events by collecting contextually relevant information (both biographical and current circumstances) and rates according to precedent examples, stripped of subjective response .
kendler ks, hettema jm, butera f, gardner co, prescott ca. life event dimensions of loss, humiliation, entrapment, and danger in the prediction of onsets of major depression and generalized anxiety .
checklists have continued to be dominant in research on the role of stressful life events in psychopathology, as well as other health outcomes. all of the previously discussed studies of potentially traumatic and other major negative events focused on various types of psychopathology and used traditional checklists with broad - event categories to inventory events over the life course. checklists in the form of self - administered questionnaires or in the form of structured interviews consisting of closed questions with fixed alternative response categories have been relied on in other influential research on the role of life events in psychopathology conducted in recent years. the behavioral genetics study of depression by kendler et al. (1995), the nationwide epidemiological research on the comorbidity of psychiatric disorders by kessler et al. (1995), and, most recently, the study of gene - by - environment interaction for depression by caspi et al. (2003). are examples .
grant ke, compas be, thurm ae, mcmahon sd, gipson py. stressors and child and adolescent psychopathology: measurement issues and prospective effects .
miller pm, salter dp. is there a short - cut? an investigation into the life event interview .
new york: oxford university press; 1997. interview measurement of stressful events in measuring stress: a guide for health and social scientists; pp. 59–79 .
hudgens rw. personal catastrophe and depression: a consideration of the subject with respect to mentally ill adolescents, and a requiem for retrospective life - event studies. in: dohrenwend bs, dohrenwend bp, editors .
recall is also helped through a personalized calendar that is updated as life events and anchoring anniversaries or social occasions (eg, holidays, birthdays) are added to the system. the timing of important psychopathology - related timings (eg, peak depression) can be added to the calendar. events are often linked to other events in autobiographical memory; therefore, the use of calendars can lead to better quality (ie, more complete and accurate) retrospective reports of events, even after several years [ 58, 59 ]. when used in conjunction with self - report methods it improves completeness of the data and dating accuracy [ 60 ]. in addition, the use of multiple, self - generated, and personal landmarks further enhances memory [ 61 ] .
we conducted analyses to test whether participants with and without a preonset severe acute event (n s = 19 and 81, respectively) and with and without a preonset severe chronic difficulty (n s = 15 and 85, respectively) differed on bdi and level of global functioning scores. for the bdi analyses, we tested for differences on 5 scale scores. first, as an overall measure of depression severity, we combined bdi total scores for participants who completed the bdi - ia and the bdi - ii. next, we conducted separate analyses for participants who completed the bdi - ia and the bdi - ii to test for potential differences between these 2 measures. finally, after the recommendations of investigators who have underscored the importance of examining specific symptoms and classes of symptoms of depression (e. g. , costello, 1993; persons, 1986), we analyzed the association of severe acute life events and chronic difficulties with participants’ cognitive and somatic subscale scores for each version of the bdi (i. e. , ia and ii). because of minor differences between the items comprising the subscales, we were unable to combine the cognitive and somatic subscale scores across participants completing the bdi - ia and the bdi - ii; these analyses were thus conducted separately by bdi type.
the life events and difficulties schedule is a psychological measurement of the stressfulness of life events . it was created by psychologists george brown and tirril harris in 1978 . instead of accumulating the stressfulness of different events , as was done in the social readjustment rating scale by thomas holmes and richard rahe , they looked at individual events in detail . the schedule is made up of an interview by which as much contextual information around the event as possible is collected . the event is then rated by " blind " raters using this contextual information . critics of this method note the fact that the impact of the independent variable , the event itself , is measured by evaluating it using mediating and moderating variables . 
the life events and difficulties schedule is a psychological measurement of the stressfulness of life events. it was created by psychologists george brown and tirril harris in 1978. instead of accumulating the stressfulness of different events, as was done in the social readjustment rating scale by thomas holmes and richard rahe, they looked at individual events in detail. the schedule is made up of an interview by which as much contextual information around the event as possible is collected. the event is then rated by " blind " raters using this contextual information. critics of this method note the fact that the impact of the independent variable, the event itself, is measured by evaluating it using mediating and moderating variables.
the life events and difficulties schedule is a psychological measurement of the stressfulness of life events. it was created by psychologists george brown and tirril harris in 1978. instead of accumulating the stressfulness of different events, as was done in the social readjustment rating scale by thomas holmes and richard rahe, they looked at individual events in detail. the schedule is made up of an interview by which as much contextual information around the event as possible is collected. the event is then rated by " blind " raters using this contextual information. critics of this method note the fact that the impact of the independent variable, the event itself, is measured by evaluating it using mediating and moderating variables.