MEASUREMENT OF MAJOR STRESSFUL EVENTS OVER LIFE COURSES

描述(申请者摘要)：研究的有力研究设计 遗传和环境在精神障碍病因学中的作用 超过了我们测量相关变量的能力。压力很大的生活 事件作为重要的环境变量就是一个很好的例子。确实有 概念化和测量问题，即使是最好的 自我报告清单的方法和更多的劳动密集型面试 和评级接近。拟议的研究将解决这些问题， 朝着获得可靠和有效的长期目标迈出重要一步 衡量的重要目标、一般性和特殊性 生命历程中的重大、有压力的人生事件。大体特征 而要调查的维度包括价态、致命性、可预测性、 中心性、大小和潜力使个人体力疲惫。 具体事件的具体方面的例子是军事暴行 战斗，在丧亲中失去年轻配偶和年长配偶，以及受害 熟人对陌生人的强奸案。具体目标是：(1)复习 我国重要类型重大单项事件个案研究文献综述 以便在其上下文中定位和定义其特定维度 一般目标维度；(2)调查事件类型如何，具体 事件的维度，以及对其某些一般维度的衡量标准各不相同 发展阶段、性别、民族/种族背景和社会经济状况 背景(SES)；(3)应用I和2中制定的特定事件评级 以及提取的重大事件叙述的一般维度的评级 从五个已完成的病例/对照研究开始或不良病程 精神分裂症、抑郁症、反社会人格、吸毒 包括酒精中毒和创伤后应激障碍(PTSD)在内的障碍； 调查纳入这些措施的程度 特定于群体和特定于事件的维度需要扩展提问和 探索获取相关叙事信息的程序；(5)测试 事件特定维度的评分增加了 重大负面事件作为五大风险因素的解释力 病例/对照研究；(6)制定程序 劳动密集型措施更经济，通过筛选重大事件 深入调查和评级；(7)编制重大事件地图手册 (8)为未来的研究制定计划。

DESCRIPTION (Applicant's abstract): Powerful research designs for studying the roles of heredity and environment in the etiology of psychiatric disorders have outstripped our ability to measure the relevant variables. Major stressful life events as important environmental variables are a case in point. There are problems of conceptualization and measurement with even the best of the self-report checklist approaches and with the more labor- intensive interview and rating approaches. The proposed research will address these problems, taking a major step toward the long-term goal of obtaining reliable and valid measures of the important objective general and specific characteristics of major, stressful life events over the life course. The general characteristics and dimensions to be investigated include valence, fatefulness, predictability, centrality, magnitude, and potential to exhaust the individual physically. Examples of specific facets of particular events are atrocities in military combat, loss of younger versus older spouses in bereavement, and victimization by acquaintances versus strangers in rape. The specific aims are: (1) To review the Literature on case studies of important types major individual events in order to locate and define their specific dimensions in the context of their general objective dimensions; (2) to investigate how types of events, specific dimensions of events, and measures of some of their general dimensions vary with developmental stage, gender, ethnic/racial background, and socioeconomic background (SES); (3) to apply the event-specific ratings developed in I and 2 and the ratings of general dimensions to narratives of major events extracted from five completed case/control studies of the onset or adverse course of schizophrenia, major depression, antisocial personality, substance use disorders including alcoholism, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); (4) to investigate the extent to which the inclusion of measures of these group-specific and event-specific dimensions require expanded questioning and probing procedures to obtain the relevant narrative information; (5) to test the extent to which the ratings of event-specific dimensions increase the explanatory power of major negative events as risk factors in the five case/control studies; (6) to develop procedures for making these labor-intensive measures more economical by screening for major events to be intensively probed and rated; (7) to develop a manual for mapping major events over the life course; and (8) to develop plans for future research.