III. Prior Life Change and Illness Onset in an Attack Carrier’s Crew

Abstract

Approximately one third of the enlisted crew of an attack carrier (N = 687) was studied during a six-month deployment to Vietnam. The Schedule of Recent Experience (SRE), designed to document significant recent life change, was administered at the beginning of the cruise, and the illnesses developed by these men during the cruise were tabulated. This paper discusses the relationship of prior life change to illness onset. Initially, an item weighting system which was constructed from civilian populations was used in scoring, but this scoring system failed to discriminate future illness. A new weighting system was then derived by stepwise multiple regression analysis, which was done separately for unrated seamen and petty officers. Several different items emerged as unique predictors for these two groups of men. The life change scores based on the regression-derived weighting system clearly and significantly discriminated future illness, indicating that new SRE scoring methods can be useful in illness prediction in small samples.