MEASUREMENT OF MAJOR STRESSFUL EVENTS OVER LIFE COURSES

描述（申请人摘要）：用于研究 遗传和环境在精神疾病病因学中的作用， 超出了我们测量相关变量的能力。生活压力大 事件作为重要的环境变量就是一个很好的例子。有 概念化和测量的问题，即使是最好的 自我报告检查表的方法，并与更多的劳动密集型访谈 和评级方法。拟议的研究将解决这些问题， 朝着获得可靠有效的长期目标迈出了重要一步， 重要目标的一般和具体特点的措施 人生中的重大压力事件一般特征 要研究的维度包括效价，命运，可预测性， 中心性，重要性，以及使个体身体疲惫的潜力。 特定事件的具体方面的例子是军事暴行， 战斗、在丧亲之痛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具体目标是：（1）审查 重要类型重大单项事件个案研究文献 以便在其上下文中定位和定义其特定尺寸， 一般客观维度;（2）调查事件类型，具体 事件的维度，以及对它们的一些一般维度的测量， 发展阶段、性别、民族/种族背景和社会经济 （3）应用在I和2中开发的事件特定评级 以及对重大事件叙述的一般维度的评分 从五个已完成的病例/对照研究的发病或不良过程， 精神分裂症，重性抑郁症，反社会人格，物质使用 包括酗酒和创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）在内的疾病;（4） 调查在何种程度上纳入这些措施， 针对特定群体和特定事件的维度需要扩大提问范围， 探究程序，获取相关叙事信息;（5）测试 事件特定维度的评分增加的程度 主要负面事件作为五个风险因素的解释力 病例/对照研究;（6）制定程序， 劳动密集型措施更经济的筛选重大事件是 深入调查和评估;（7）制定一份手册，用于绘制重大事件 （8）制定未来研究计划。

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.