Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T08:56:16.863Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Life Events, Vulnerability and Onset of Depression

Some Refinements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Abstract

A prospective study of 400 largely working-class women with children living at home has once again demonstrated the major importance of long-term severe threatening life events in provoking caseness of depression. However, it again shows that only about one out of five women experiencing such an event go on to develop depression at a case level. This paper demonstrates that more sensitive characterisation of severe events can greatly increase the size of this association. This is done both by improving the description of the event itself and by taking into account various ways in which the event can ‘match’ characteristics of the women present at the first interview, well before the occurrence of the event or any onset of depression.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andrews, C. & Tennant, C. (1978) Being upset and becoming ill: an appraisal of the relation between life events and physical illness. Medical Journal of Australia, 1, 324327.Google Scholar
Bebbington, P., Sturt, E., Tennant, C. & Hurry, J. (1984) Misfortune and resilience: a replication of the work of Brown & Harris. Psychological Medicine, 14, 347363.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. (1981) Life events, psychiatric disorder and physical illness. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 25, 461473.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. (1983) Accounts, meaning and causality. In Accounts and Action (eds G. N. Gilbert & P. Abell London: Gower.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. (1986) Depression. In Life Events and Illness (eds G. W. Brown and T. O. Harris). New York: Guildford Press (in press).Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. & Harris, T. O. (1978) Social Origins of Depression: A Study of Psychiatric Disorder in Women. London: Tavistock Publications; New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. & Prudo, R. (1981) Psychiatric disorder in a rural and an urban population. 1. Aetiology of depression. Psychological Medicine, 11, 581599.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. & Harris, T. O. (1982) Fall-off in the reporting of life events. Social Psychiatry, 17, 2328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, G. W. & Bifulco, A. (1985) Social support, life events and depression. In Social Support: Theory, Research and Applications (ed. I. Sarason). Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. & Harris, T. O. (1986) Establishing causal links: the Bedford College studies of depression. In Life Events and Psychiatric Disorders (ed. H. Katschinig). London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W., Craig, T. K. J. & Harris, T. O. (1985) Depression: disease or distress? Some epidemiological considerations. British Journal of Psychiatry, 147, 612622.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W., Andrews, B., Harris, T., Adler, Z. & Bridge, L. (1986a) Social support, self-esteem and depression. Psychological Medicine (in press).Google Scholar
Brown, G. W., Bifulco, A., Harris, T. O. & Bridge, L. (1986b) Life stress, chronic subclinical symptoms and vulnerability to clinical depression. Journal of Affective Disorders, 11, 119.Google Scholar
Campbell, E., Cope, S. & Teasdale, J. (1983) Social factors and affective disorder: an investigation of Brown and Harris's model. British Journal of Psychiatry, 143, 548553.Google Scholar
Cole, P. & Macmahon, B. (1971) Attributable risk percent in case-control studies. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 25, 242244.Google Scholar
Cooper, B. & Sylph, J. (1973) Life events and the onset of neurotic illness: an investigation in general practice. Psychological Medicine, 3, 421435.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooper, J. E., Copeland, J. R. M., Brown, G. W., Harris, T. O. & Gourley, A. J. (1977) Further studies on interviewer training and inter-rater reliability of the present state examination (P.S.E.). Psychological Medicine, 7, 517523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costello, C. G. (1982) Social factors associated with depression: a retrospective community study. Psychological Medicine, 12, 329339.Google Scholar
Dean, C., Surtees, P. G. & Sashidharan, S. P. (1983) Comparison of research diagnostic systems in an Edinburgh community sample. British Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 247256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finlay-Jones, R. A. & Brown, G. W. (1981) Types of stressful life event and the onset of anxiety and depressive disorders. Psychological Medicine, 11, 803815.Google Scholar
Finlay-Jones, R. A., Brown, G. W., Duncan-Jones, P., Harris, T. O., Murphy, E. & Prudo, R. (1980) Depression and anxiety in the community: replicating the diagnosis of a case. Psychological Medicine, 10, 445454.Google Scholar
Goldthorpe, J. H. & Hope, K. (1974) The Social Grading of Occupations: A New Approach and Scale. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Markush, R. E. (1977) Levin's attributable risk statistic for analytic studies and vital statistics. American Journal of Epidemiology, 105, 401407.Google Scholar
Martin, P. M. & Ingham, J. G. (1985) Dimensions of experience and symptomatology. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 29, 475488.Google Scholar
Moss, P. & Plewis, I. (1977) Mental distress in mothers of preschool children in Inner London. Psychological Medicine, 7, 641652.Google Scholar
Neilson, E. (1984) Psycho-social factors in physical disorders: A preliminary report to the ESRC.Google Scholar
O'Connor, O. & Brown, G. W. (1984) Supportive relationships: fact or fancy? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 1, 159195.Google Scholar
Parry, G. & Shapiro, D. A. (1986) Social support and life events in working-class women: stress buffering or independent effects? Archives of General Psychiatry, 148, 373385.Google Scholar
Parry, G., Shapiro, , & Davies, L. (1981) Reliability of life-event ratings: an independent replication. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 20, 133134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spitzer, R. L., Endicott, J. & Robins, E. (1978) Research diagnostic criteria; rationale and reliability. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 773782.Google Scholar
Surtees, P. G., Dean, C., Ingham, J. G., Kreitman, N. B., Miller, P. Mc C. & Sashidharan, S. P. (1983) Psychiatric disorder in women in an Edinburgh community: associations with demographic factors. British Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 238246.Google Scholar
Tennant, C., Smith, A., Bebbington, P. & Hurry, J. (1979) The contextual threat of life events: the concept and its reliability. Psychological Medicine, 9, 525528.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K. & Sturt, E. (1978) The PSE-ID-CATEGO System-a supplementary manual. London: Institute of Psychiatry (mimeo).Google Scholar
Wing, J. K., Cooper, J. E. & Sartorius, N. (1974) The Measurement and Classification of Psychiatric Symptoms. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K., Nixon, J. M., Mann, S. A. & Leff, J. P. (1977) Reliability of the PSE (ninth edition) used in a population study. Psychological Medicine, 7, 505516.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.