Life Events and Psychiatric Illness

The present case-control study examined if sudden cardiac death in women is preceded by death of a significant other, change in residence, or change in work. The sample included 81 Caucasian women ages 25-64 years in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, who died suddenly from arteriosclerotic heart disease (ASHD) within a 11/2 year interval. Each case was matched to a neighborhood control on the basis of race, age, and sex. Results revealed that relative to matched controls, cases were six times as likely to have experienced the death of a significant other within the last months; they were no more likely to have experienced changes in living conditions or in work. These findings raise the issue of whether death of a significant other is an antecedent event of death due to ASHD only or death due to all causes. Possible explanations for the temporal association between sudden death and death of a significant other are discussed.

Section: Sudden Death and Recentmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…Negative events. Death of a spouse (100); death of a boyfriend (100); divorce (73); death of a close family member (63); jail term (63); recent illness or injury (53); fired at work (47); break up of a family (39); death of a close friend (37); arguments with (25); any change in job status (20); change in church activities (19).…”

Section: Dependent Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Events Preceding Sudden Death in Women

Cottington

Matthews

Talbott

et al. 1980

“…Significant and positive correlations (r values usually 0.1 to 0.3) have been reported between this measure and bodily symptoms: illnesses of all types (27)(28)(29)(30), severity of myocardial infarctions (28,(31)(32)(33)(34), coronary heart disease (35)(36)(37), the occurrence of depressive types of psychiatric illness (25,26,(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43), and other symptoms of psychiatric illness (44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51)(52)(53)(54)(55). These studies were ably summarized at the two conferences mentioned earlier (1,2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Life Event Questionnaires for Measuring Presumptive Stress

Horowitz

Schaefer

Hiroto

et al. 1977

211

Cumulative stress from the impact of life events has become an important variable in psychosomatic and psychological research. This article provides both short and long life events questionnaires that add to incidence information the remoteness or recency in time of a given experience. In the weight assignment system that leads to a single presumptive stress score, events remote in time have less influence than recent events. The reliability of weight assignment was checked in subject groups that differed by sex, age, and status. Women weighted life events as more stressful than did men; other differences in groups were less important. In spite of the sex differential, review of these data suggests use of the same weight assignments for all subgroups rather than differential weighting by sex and age. Reliability was also checked by test and retest methods: in contrast to common sense expectation, a disappointingly low level of reliability was found. The implications for investigative use of life events questionnaires are discussed.

“…These factors, in turn, may mean that they show a differential vulnerability to so-called social precipitants. The findings of Morrison and Hudgens who evaluated the influence of a number of life events in affective disorders using hospitalized medical and surgical patients as controls were notable precisely because they failed to turn up striking differences (40,41). Patients classified as having an affective disorder, when compared to the controls, only showed more frequent changes of residence and reported interpersonal discord during the year prior to admission, but this was usually after the disease had become manifest.…”

Section: Problems Associated With Epidemiologic Inquiriesmentioning

confidence: 94%

Problems Implicit in the Cultural and Social Study of Depression

Fàbrega

1974

This paper reviews issues and questions that are tied to the study of psychiatric disease in relation to social systems. The specific focus is on the Western disease depression. The first part deals with problems arising when depression is examined in relation to culture. This part, which is largely analytical, points to problems inherent in the field of cultural psychiatry. The second part addresses problems involved in the study of depression in Western nations. Epidemiological questions as well as factors involving the influence of social factors in the onset, duration and manifestations of depression are given attention in the attempt to bring out fundamental dilemmas tied to the social study of psychiatric disease.