生活壓力的概念與測量

THE CONCEPT AND MEASUREMENT OF LIFE STRESS

這篇論文的資料是來自於七百位病人、社區居民，及精神分裂症病人之家屬。主要討論的重點是有關「生活壓力」這個概念及其測量上的幾個議題。其內容包括生命週期與生活事件的經歷之間的關係；生活事件的發生是否有羣集出現的情形；生活事件所引起的「改變」、「情緒反應」及「願意程度」之間的關係；及如何能克服在一個時間點上收集資料的研究，澄淸生活壓力與心理健康之間的因果關係。研究結果發現生命週期和生活事件的經歷關係並不顯著。年齡可以說是唯一有影響的變數，但其影響並不在於生活事件的「發生率」，而在於「盛行率」。其次，研究結果也看不出生活事性的發生有明顯的羣集出現的情形。而「情緒反應」與「願意程度」是兩個獨立的變數。以詢問生活事件發生的時間，代替「過去一年（我某段時間之間）您經歷過那些生活事件」的問法，在技術上是可以相當程度的將生活事件及心理健康的時間上的先後次序區分出來。

Major issues of the concept and measurement of life stress we empirically examined based on the data collected from 700 respondents in a Study of the Relationship among Life Events, Social Support, and Mental illness. Interaction between life cycle and experience of life events, internal structure of the onset of life events, issue of the importance of ''change'', ''emotioal response'', and ''desirability'' are studied. Our findings indicate a weak linkage between life cycle and experience of life events. It is necessary to differentiate the incidence from life-long prevalence of life events. Age is the only variable playing relative significant role in contributing the accumulation of life events. Sex, education, and socio-economic show no relevance. The onset of life events did not appear to be clustering in certain form. Emotional response and desirability about the experience of life events seem to be two rather independent variables. Method to identifying temporal sequence of life events and mental illness in cross-sectional data is also discussed.