STRESSFUL LIFE EVENTS AND COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER PATIENTS

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Abstract
The occurrence of stressful life events prior to treatment and at a follow-up timepoint in a general sample of community mental health center patients were investigated. Life events scores from the patients, at both timepoints, were compared with scores from a nonpatient sample drawn from the community. Patients before entering treatment tended to experience more events (particularly undesirable ones that could be confounded with psychological condition) than nonpatients. This result was no longer true at the follow-up timepoint. Findings regarding life events and patienthood were basically the same whether all events were used (i.e., the change score) or undesirable events alone. If only events judged to be unconfounded with psychological condition were considered, there was no difference between patients and nonpatients at either timepoint. Implications of the study''s results for the direction-of-effect issue with respect to the stress-psychological disorder relationship were discussed.

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