Self-Report Assessment of Life Change and Disorders

Abstract

Frequency and severity of life changes were compared to frequency and severity of physical and psychological disorders for a sample of 90 college students. Four scores for life changes were, calculated from a life events questionnaire. A subject's score was the sum of his life change events when each item was weighted for the amount of social readjustment caused by the event by: (1) the mean ratings of all subjects, (2) the mean rating of only the subjects who experienced the item-event in the last 12 mo., and (3) the subject's own rating. (4) The final score was the number of events marked. Two scores for disorders were computed from the Seriousness of Illness Rating Scale. They were (1) the total for items marked when each item was weighted for severity and (2) the number of items marked. The largest correlation between life changes and disorders was between number of events and number of disorders (r = .34). Weighting life change scores with experiences' means provided the largest correlations with disorder scores while weighting with individual weights provided the smallest correlations with disorders. No differences were found between the two measures of disorder.