Life Events and Schizophrenia

Abstract

• In exploring the relationship of life events and psychiatric impairment in a group of 132 posthospitalized schizophrenics living in the community, schizophrenics are contrasted with 132 nonpatient community subjects matched on age, race, sex, and social class. Schizophrenics were significantly more psychiatrically impaired than their nonpatient counterparts and experienced significantly more life events. The overall correlation between life events and psychiatric impairment is weaker in the schizophrenic group than in the control group. However, our findings underscore the association between these variables found in previous studies. In terms of specificity, schizophrenics