Introduction

Introduction

Life event/stress, social support, and its effects on the onset, relapse of symptoms, and outcome of treatment has been the subjects with rapidly increasing attention for study in recent years. During 1991-1993, the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange had granted a two-years fund to Eng-Kung Yeh, and his colleagues to study this subject in collaboration with Professor Joe Yamamoto of the UCLA and Professor Jacqueline M. Golding of the UCSF (RG010-90). In order to: (1) review the recent advancement in the concept and measurement of stress and social support with special reference to family functions; (2) to present major findings of recent studies in Taiwan and other countries, and (3) to examine the effects of cultural attributes on the process of stress-support-mental health model through cross-cultural comparison of the research findings, the International Symposium entitled ''Life Events/ Stress, Social Support and Mental Health: Cross-cultural Perspectives'' was held at the Taipei Medical College during June 17-19, 1997 under the support of the above foundation.