A sample of children and adolescents (n = 157) attending a child psychiatry outpatient clinic with conduct or emotional disturbance were compared with community controls (n = 76) for the number and type of recent life events. A Life Events Schedule for children and adolescents was developed and used as a semi-structured interview. Four clinical groups were identified according to their predominant presenting symptoms (conduct, mild mood, severe mood, or somatic). An excess of events carrying a severe degree of negative impact was found for all four groups, compared with matched controls. Eleven classes of events were examined: there is a suggestion that two classes (martial/family, accident/illness) may be more important for conduct and mild mood disorders, and that a further class (permanent separations, termed exits) may be more important for somatic and severe mood disorders.

The timing and number of recent stressful life events occurring in the year before onset of emotional or behavioural disorder was examined in a consecutive sample of children. Overall, events increase the relative risk of psychiatric disorder by 3-6 times. Events occur throughout the 12 months, but tend to cluster in the 16 weeks nearest onset of symptoms. The number of events influences the onset of disorder: cases with multiple events are more likely to have an event within 16 weeks of onset; cases with single events are more likely to have the event 36-52 weeks before onset. Cases whose onset occurs within 4 weeks of an event may have experienced single or multiple events. The results support the concept of additivity of recent stressful events in some cases of emotional and behavioural disorders in childhood.

In a consecutive sample of school-aged children attending a routine child psychiatry clinic, four clinical groups were classified based on presenting signs and symptoms, conduct (N = 44), mild emotional (N = 55), severe emotional (N = 32) and somatic (N = 26). The groups were divided by age and sex and comparisons made between the groups and community subjects (N = 76) for the number of children experiencing one or more recent stressful life events. The results indicated that with the possible exception of severe emotional disorders, neither age nor sex substantially influenced the association between events and psychiatric disorder.

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