Life Events: Stressful Experiences

Question 1

What are the 3 stages of response to a stressor (general adaptation syndrome)?

Answer 1

Alarm: appraisal of threat and physiological response

Resistance: bodily defences weakened by maintenance of threat response

Exhaustion: bodily defences break down causing illness susceptibility

Question 2

What are the types of stressors?

Answer 2

Chronic difficulties

Acute life events

Question 3

What are examples of acute life events?

Answer 3

Actual change
Decision to do something
News
Forecasts (advance notice)
Revelation events
Disclosures (affair)

Question 4

What are some challenges in identifying stressor and outcome?

Answer 4

Reverse causality - try to date the events and rate their independence

Recall bias - investigator rating

Confounding factors -

Question 5

What is the impact of severe events?

Answer 5

Found to precede 90% of all onsets of depression

Question 6

What is the LEDS approach?

Answer 6

Focus - self/other

Independence

Contextual threat - short term/long term

Question 7

How does negative evaluation of self affect onset of depression?

Answer 7

Increases risk of depression in presence and absence of severe life event

Question 8

What are the downstream consequences of child abuse?

Answer 8

Affected adult relationships
Lowers self esteem
Increased vulnerability to severe events
More likely to have depression after severe event

Question 9

What neuropsychiatric disorder is associated with intrusive events as a precipitating factor?

Answer 9

Schizophrenia
Exposure in previous 3 months 17c more likely (assault or arrest)