A Multidimensional Assessment of Stressful Life Events among Adolescents: Derivation and Correlates

Abstract

A 39-item life-event questionnaire was administered to 1,018 adolescents, who indicated the perceived desirability of each event and whether the event had actually happened to them either during the past year or more than one year earlier. A multidimensional scaling revealed seven interpretable dimensions of stress: Family/Parents, Accident/Illness, Sexuality, Autonomy, Deviance, Relocation, and Distress. Each dimension was scored for desirability, and occurrence was summed using unit weighting. Sex, race, and grade-level differences were evaluated for each item and scale score. The scales calculated for the two different time periods revealed that stress is correlated over time only for corresponding areas. Finally, the stress scales were related to measures of health and psychological functioning through canonical and product-moment correlation analyses; distinct patterns of association were revealed. Alternative methods of scoring life events are evaluated.