Methodological Issues in Relating Psychiatric Symptoms to Social Stressors

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Abstract
Two major methodological issues have arisen in the analysis and interpretation of data from a Chicago-area cross-sectional survey on stress with 2,299 normal adults. These are (1) the relative independence between measures of current social stressors and of psychiatric symptomatology and (2) the predominant direction of effect between these two phenomena. To test relative independence we developed a matrix of intercorrelations among the indices. The low to moderate correlations vary in magnitude several-fold and support the notion that social stressors and psychiatric symptoms occur relatively independently of one another. To test predominant direction of effect the estimated durations in time of stressors and of symptoms are compared. Stressors consistently show a longer duration than symptoms, supporting the view that they influence symptoms more than the reverse.

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