Life events and difficulties schedule

BACKGROUND: The reasons for the high prevalence of depressive disorders in women of Pakistani origin living in the UK are not clear. The aim of this study was to determine the relative importance of life events, chronic social difficulties and acculturation in a population-based sample of British Pakistani women. METHOD: A cross-sectional and prospective cohort study of 18- to 65-year-old Pakistani women in UK was carried out. The Schedule for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry for diagnosis, the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule for social stress and an acculturation questionnaire were used...

BACKGROUND: In psychiatric research it is often assumed that detrimental effects of negative life events on mental health can be buffered by a number of positive life events. However, there is no convincing empirical evidence that this assumption is correct; it can even be argued that positive life events act as additional stressors rather than as buffers, leading to a continuation of a chaotic life course and an increase in the risk of affective disorders. AIM: To find out whether positive life events were associated with a higher risk of the occurrence of mood disorders and whether such an association could be explained by a number of negative life events that individuals had experienced...

The first objective was to identify the provoking events of suicide in patients with schizophrenia or schizoid-type disorder, and to assess the humiliation component of these events. The second objective was to verify if quality of care during childhood is a vulnerability factor for suicide in patients with schizophrenia or schizoid-type psychosis. Thirty-three cases of suicide with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoid-type psychosis were compared with 34 living patients with a similar diagnosis. The psychological autopsy method was used...

Theoretical models attempting to explain why approximately twice as many women as men suffer from depression often involve the role of stressful life events. However, detailed empirical evidence regarding gender differences in rates of life events that precede onset of depression is lacking, due in part to the common use of checklist assessments of stress that have been shown to possess poor validity. The present study reports on a combined sample of 375 individuals drawn from 4 studies in which all participants were diagnosed with major depressive disorder and assessed with the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (Bifulco et al...

A cross sectional population based epidemiological survey of 899 adults aged between 15 and 59 was undertaken in two urban areas of demographic surveillance sites in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, using the Clinical Interview Schedule Revised. Significantly higher rates were found among those who had experienced more than three severe life events in the last six months and relationship difficulties and death of a loved one.

AIMS: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the dominant diagnosis in in-patient care in Sweden and the third most common cause for long-term sick leave and disability pension. Women are higher consumers of health care than men and have higher frequencies of sickness absenteeism. The aim of this paper was to evaluate whether a five-year long rehabilitation programme for women with CVD affected the use of hospital care and sickness absenteeism. METHODS: 130 women below 65 years of age with CVD were randomized to either intervention (n = 69, mean age 52...

In psychiatric pharmacotherapy, there are many undesirable events which can exacerbate patient QOL (quality of life) such as side effects, difficulty of therapeutic effect prediction and prolongation of treatment duration in treatment-resistant cases. To resolve these problems, it has been very important to establish treatment and predictive markers which can be utilized in pharmacotherapy. In this respect, recent studies have been carried out to demonstrate endophenotype in schizophrenia. Endophenotype is an alternative marker based on genetics, and it can contribute to the assessment of disease by indicating a complicated pathology such as depression...

AIM: To test the hypothesis that stressful life events, in particular intrusive events, would cluster before the first onset of psychosis. METHO: Forty-one patients with first episode psychosis were interviewed with the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule to assess events in the year before the onset of illness. Events were rated contextually on timing, independence, threat, and intrusiveness. Within-patient group clustering was evaluated, and the patient group was compared with two general population surveys from London...

Although many researchers have investigated emotional and behavioral difficulties in individuals with Williams syndrome, few have used standardized diagnostic assessments. We examined mental health problems in 92 adults with Williams syndrome using the Psychiatric Assessment Schedule for Adults with Developmental Disabilities-PAS-ADD (Moss, Goldberg, et al., 1996). Factors potentially associated with mental health problems were also explored. The PAS-ADD identified mental health problems in 24% of the sample...

The current study examined whether the personality traits of self-criticism or dependency moderated the effect of stressful life events on treatment response. Depressed outpatients (N = 113) were randomized to 16 weeks of cognitive-behavioral therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, or antidepressant medication (ADM). Stressful life events were assessed with the Bedford College Life Events and Difficulties Schedule. Severe events reported during or immediately prior to treatment predicted poor response in the ADM condition but not in the psychotherapy conditions...

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive, impairing, life-limiting disorder of childhood. Little is known about how siblings adapt to this. The aim of this study is to document psychosocial adjustment in siblings of patients with DMD. Healthy siblings (11-18 years old) of young people with DMD attending a specialist paediatric centre and their parent/main carer took part. Parents, siblings and teachers completed a battery of questionnaires: (i) to assess psychiatric risk the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS); (ii) to measure general wellbeing: SF-36; (iii) to document DMD illness disability: Functional Disability Inventory (FDI); (iv) to assess family function and life stresses for the unaffected sibling: Family Assessment Device (FAD), Family Burden Interview Schedule and Life Events Checklist...

BACKGROUND: The role of current social risk factors in moderating the impact of antidepressant medication has not previously been explored. METHOD: In a RCT of SSRIs of general practice patients with mild to moderate depression (HDRS 12-19) two social indices of aversive experience were developed on the basis of prior research. First, the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (LEDS) was used twice to document: i) recent stressful experience prior to baseline, and ii) after baseline and before follow up at 12 weeks both stressful and positive experiences, taking account of 'fresh start' and 'difficulty-reduction' events...

BACKGROUND: Cognitive dysfunction is very common in multiple sclerosis (MS) and it severely impairs patients' quality of life. Thus, we explored whether memantine might improve cognitive performance in patients with MS. METHODS: We conducted a pilot trial with memantine (30 mg/day) in patients with MS with cognitive impairment. The trial was designed as a 1-year, randomized, double-blind, crossover study comparing memantine against a placebo in 60 patients with MS and cognitive impairment...

Although much research has focused on the role of severe life events as risk factors for depression onset, less is known about the relationship between nonsevere life events and depression recurrence. The current study examined the cumulative effects of nonsevere and positive life events on depression recurrence in an outpatient sample of recurrently depressed women treated to remission with interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT). A Cox proportional hazards model was used to test this relationship in 124 adult women who entered into the maintenance phase of IPT treatment and completed at least 1 Life Events and Difficulties Schedule interview...

This study aimed at the investigation of psychosocial and psychiatric risk factors of adolescent suicide by means of a case-control psychological autopsy study. Relatives and other informants of 19 suicide victims and 19 matched psychiatric controls were interviewed by means of a semi-structured interview schedule. Psychiatric controls included adolescents, individually matched according to gender, age and time between interview and suicide/admission, who had been admitted to a Psychiatric Department with suicidal ideation or attempted suicide at admission...

INTRODUCTION: We compared depression, social stress and treatment in people of Pakistani origin and white Europeans living in an UK city. METHOD: In a population-based two-phase sample of 1,856 adults we interviewed 651 (77%) of eligible participants, using the schedule for clinical assessment in neuropsychiatry and life events and difficulties schedule. We identified 216 people with depressive and 208 with subthreshold disorder; after 6-months we re-interviewed 398 (94% response)...

An 80-year-old male was diagnosed with carcinoma in the lung with multiple bony metastases and had been prescribed pain medications as per World Health Organization analgesic ladder guidelines. However, he was not getting adequate pain relief and there were difficulties in titration of the morphine doses on an outpatient basis. Therefore, he was hospitalized for dose titration of oral morphine and was coprescribed amitriptyline and ranitidine. During the titration of the analgesic dose, he developed severe symptoms of morphine overdose...

To date, few prospective studies of life events and bipolar disorder are available, and even fewer have separately examined the role of life events in depression and mania. The goal of this study was to prospectively examine the role of negative and goal-attainment life events as predictors of the course of bipolar disorder. One hundred twenty-five individuals with bipolar I disorder were interviewed monthly for an average of 27 months. Negative and goal-attainment life events were assessed with the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule...

BACKGROUND: Few studies have examined whether attributional style (an individual's explanation of why events happen) is a genetically influenced vulnerability factor for depression. AIMS: To investigate whether attributional style is an enduring vulnerability trait for recurrent depression. METHOD: As part of the Cardiff Depression Study, we interviewed 108 people with depression and their siblings, and a control group of 105 healthy individuals and their siblings, using the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry and the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule...

BACKGROUND: The construct "meaning-in-life" (MiL) has recently raised the interest of clinicians working in psycho-oncology and end-of-life care and has become a topic of scientific investigation. Difficulties regarding the measurement of MiL are related to the various theoretical and conceptual approaches and its inter-individual variability. Therefore the "Schedule for Meaning in Life Evaluation" (SMiLE), an individualized instrument for the assessment of MiL, was developed. The aim of this study was to evaluate MiL in a representative sample of the German population...