Life stress and depressive outcome: Application of a dissipation model to life events

Summary A group of 71 patients were interviewed seven months after they had been screened for a new episode of unipolar depressive illness and the relationship between symptom severity at this time and the life stresses experienced over this period investigated. On the basis of the follow-up assessment, patients were divided into a well and ill group. The mean number of life events experienced during the study period did distinguish patients ill from patients well at follow-up but with less success than has been claimed for onset. Further analysis took into account both the severity of life stress suffered and the time of its occurrence. This improved the discrimination. Both time of event occurrence and event severity were then included in a model of adversity in which it was postulated that event stress dissipates with time. Application of the model to the study data resulted in the statistical relationship between life stress and outcome being somewhat strengthened. The possible implications of this result for further research in life stress are discussed.This work was supported by the Science Research Council, the Mental Health Research Fund (Scottish Division) and the Medical Research Council.