Life events, fitness, hardiness, and health: A simultaneous analysis of proposed stress-resistance effects.

The effects of exercise participation, self-perceived fitness level, and dispositional hardiness for promoting stress resistance were examined in a sample of 373 college students. Self-report measures of stressful life experience and recent physical illness were positively correlated, and fitness and hardiness were negatively correlated with illness as expected. Multiple regression analyses indicated that neither fitness nor hardiness provided a stress-moderator effect because neither was found to significantly interact with stress in the prediction of illness scores. Structural equation analyses suggested that hardiness may affect health indirectly by first influencing either the occurrence or subjective interpretation of stressful life events. No direct effect on health was found for exercise participation, although exercise may reduce illness indirectly by improving fitness. Implications for the multivariate modeling of proposed stress-resistance-enhancing effects are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of daily hassles, uplifts, and major life events to health status.

100 45–64 yr olds completed a hassles scale, an uplifts scale, a recent life events schedule, and a health status questionnaire. Analysis showed that hassles—the repeated or chronic strains of everyday life—were more strongly associated with somatic health than were life events. Hassles shared most of the variance in health that could be accounted for by life events, and when the effects of life events were statistically removed, hassles and health remained significantly related. Daily uplifts made little contribution to health that was independent of hassles. The assessment of daily hassles appears to be a useful approach to the study of life stress and could be an important supplement to the life events approach that, alone, is insufficient for full understanding and practical prediction of health outcomes. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cost of good fortune: When positive life events produce negative health consequences.

Previous research regarding the effects of positive life events on physical health has been inconclusive. We tested the hypothesis that positive life events have a detrimental effect on health only among people with negative self-views. This prediction derives from an identity disruption model of stress, which holds that an accumulation of life events that are inconsistent with the self-concept leads to physical illness. To test the hypothesis, we conducted 2 prospective studies in which positive life events and self-esteem were used to predict the development of illness over time. In accordance with predictions, both studies showed that desirable life changes were associated with increases in illness only among Ss with low self-esteem; among Ss with high self-esteem, positive life events were linked to better health. Implications for understanding the manner in which life events affect health are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exercise and the experience and appraisal of daily stressors: a naturalistic study

Thirty-eight men and 35 women completed diaries of exercise, mood, and the experience and appraisal of daily stressors over 12 consecutive days. It was hypothesized that exercise would be associated with positive moods and with the experience of fewer daily stressors. Positive moods were rated higher and depression lower on exercise days than no-exercise days. Participants low in trait anxiety reported fewer stressful events on the days on which they exercised. Those with strong personal (health, physical appearance, and mood) motives for exercise reported more stressful daily events overall; in addition, they experienced more potentially stressful events as nonstressful on the days during which they engaged in physical exercise. The results are discussed in relation to the acute after-effects of exercise on mood and stress responsivity and the long term of psychological benefits of regular exercise.     

Models of cognitive mediation and moderation in child depression.

Negative cognitive errors, attributional style, positive and negative events, peer-nominated competence, and self-reported depression were assessed in 356 4th, 6th, and 8th graders. Data supported theoretical models in which attributional style and cognitive errors mediated the relation of competence to depression. Data did not support models in which attributional style moderated the relation between either life events or competence and depression; however, weak support emerged for a moderational model involving negative life events and cognitive errors. The viability of diathesis–stress models in childhood, especially in which cognitive style is the diathesis, is critically examined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of life event stress on physical illness: Substantive effects or methodological flaws?

Tested the hypothesis that the reported relationship between life event stress and physical illness is primarily a function of criterion and other content contamination in the stress measure. In particular, conventional life event measures included events related to physical health, which overlap with the criterion; events related to neuroticism, which influences the criterion; and vague or subjective events that could be affected by individual differences in psychological distress, response sets, and retrospective bias. 386 adult males and females (who ranged in age from their early 20's to their 90's) completed a version of the Schedule of Recent Experience, the Seriousness of Illness Rating Scale, the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Inventory, and the Eysenck Personality Inventory. Illness was significantly related to event subscales containing, respectively, health-related events, neuroticism-related events, and subjective events, but not to an "uncontaminated" event subscale. These results support the hypothesis of contamination and suggest that alternative approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of stress may need to be developed. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social support and adaptation to stress by the elderly.

Examined the prospective effects of stress and social support on the physical and mental health of 50 60–88 yr olds, who were assessed twice over a 6-mo period. Instruments included the UCLA Loneliness Scale; Self-Rating Depression Scale; and measures of physical health, social support, and stressful life events. Social support was a significant predictor of physical health status, whereas mental health was related to the stress by social support interaction. Results are consistent with the buffering hypothesis, in that high levels of social support reduced the negative impact of stress on mental health. Ss who were in better mental health at the initial assessment experienced fewer stressful events and higher levels of social support over the subsequent 6-mo period, whereas physical health was directly influenced by social provisions that were related to feeling valued by others. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bilateral threshold frequency weighting in hearing disability predictions

The growing size of world cities and ever more competitive working conditions are thought to cause subjective stress, anxiety and depression, with a resulting decrease in the quality of life, sleep disturbances, drug and alcohol abuse and poor productivity. Acute stress may suppress immune function, leading to an increased incidence of infections, and chronic stress may predispose to a number of ailments, including digestive disturbances, hypertension, ischaemic heart disease and neoplasia; jointly, these factors cause a substantial shortening of life expectancy. The control of stress thus makes an important contribution to health. Stress levels can be reduced by anxiolytic drugs, or by a variety of psychological techniques; however, an appropriate programme of physical activity may be the preferred option, since exercise has many positive effects on health that are unrelated to stress. If exercise is to be effective in inducing relaxation, it must be noncompetitive, moderate in intensity, and pursued in pleasant surroundings.     

Stress reactivity following brief treatment for depression: Differential effects of psychotherapy and medication.

Psychotherapy and medication treatments are both effective in reducing depressive symptoms. However, only psychotherapy provides an enduring effect by reducing depressive vulnerability following treatment termination. This differential efficacy may reflect mode-specific effects on the longitudinal relationship between depression and stress. The current study examined posttreatment data from 153 outpatients enrolled in the Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program. Longitudinal analyses using the latent difference score (LDS) framework (a structural modeling technique that combines features of latent growth curve and cross-lagged regression models) evaluated the temporal relationship between severity of depression and frequency of stressful life events, assessed by interviewers at treatment termination and at 6, 12, and 18 months following treatment. Results supported a stress reactivity model in that stressful events led to elevations in the rate of depression change. Furthermore, multigroup LDS analysis indicated that this longitudinal stress reactivity occurred only for outpatients in the medication conditions. Results demonstrate that the enduring impact of psychotherapy involves the development of enhanced resiliency to stressful life events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does emotionality predict stress? Findings from the Normative Aging Study.

Investigated whether emotionality, assessed in 1975, predicted the reporting of both objective stress (life events) and subjective stress (hassles) 10 years later, and how emotionality affected the relation between both objective and subjective stress and mental health. The sample consisted of 1,159 older men, participants in the Normative Aging Study. Path analysis revealed that the reporting of stress was confounded with personality: Individuals higher in emotionality reported both more life events and more hassles. Furthermore, individuals higher in emotionality exhibited slightly higher levels of symptoms under stress than did individuals lower in emotionality. Nonetheless, both stress measures contributed independent variance to the prediction of psychological symptoms, even controlling for prior levels of emotionality. Implications for the assessment of stress are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ocular-specific chemical delivery systems of betaxolol for safe local treatment of glaucoma

This paper examines the social origins of the rise in adult mortality in Russia and selected Eastern European countries. Three explanations for this trend are considered: (1) Soviet health policy, (2) social stress, and (3) health lifestyles. The socialist states were generally characterized by a persistently poor mortality performance as part of a long-term process of deterioration, with particularly negative outcomes for the life expectancy of middle-aged, male manual workers. Soviet-style health policy was ineffective in dealing with the crisis, and stress per se does not seem to be the primary cause of the rise in mortality. Although more research is needed, the suggestion is made that poor health lifestyles--reflected especially in heavy alcohol consumption, and also in smoking, lack of exercise, and high-fat diets--are the major social determinant of the upturn in deaths.     

Stress and coping in early adolescence: Relationships to substance use in urban school samples.

Obtained measures of stress and coping from 901 urban 7th and 8th graders and were related to indices of cigarette smoking and alcohol use. Stress was indexed by measures of subjective stress, recent events, and major life events; coping was assessed by behavior and intention-based methods. Concurrent and prospective analyses indicated that stress was positively related to substance use, and 4 coping mechanisms (behavioral coping, cognitive coping, adult social support, and relaxation) were inversely related to substance use. Measures indexing peer support, distraction coping, and aggressive coping were positively related to substance use, independent of other predictors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do stressful life events affect duration of gestation and risk of preterm delivery?

The present study was designed to test the relation between stressful life events experienced during pregnancy and the risk of preterm delivery and shortened duration of pregnancy. We collected data prospectively in a general population sample, including repeated questionnaire measures of exposure to stressful life events during pregnancy. Between August 1989 and September 1991, 8,719 Danish-speaking women with singleton pregnancies attended antenatal care. Of these women, 5,873 (67%) completed all questionnaires. When indicating an event, the woman was asked to rate the amount of stress induced by this event. Measurement of gestational duration was primarily based on early ultrasound scan. When we evaluated life events independently of the individual's appraisal, we found no association with duration of gestation or risk of preterm delivery. In contrast, life events assessed by the subject as highly stressful were associated with shorter mean duration of gestation and increased risk of preterm delivery. This association was observed primarily with events experienced between the 16th and 30th week of gestation. Women who had one or more highly stressful life events had a risk of preterm delivery 1.76 times greater than those without stressful events (95% confidence interval = 1.15-2.71). We found no evidence for a buffering effect of social support.     

Stress, social support, and distress in a statewide population of persons with AIDS in New Jersey

This study examined the effects of stress, social support, and health status on distress in a sample of 79 persons with AIDS in New Jersey. The study used New Jersey's AIDS Registry as a geographically based list sampling frame, with data gathered through in-person interviews. The study examined the effects of health status (operationalized as symptom burden), stress (operationalized with a stressful-life-events scale), social support from friends, and social support from family on depression as measured by the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale. We examined the differential effects of friend support and of family support at differing levels of stressful life events. Results indicate that health status and stressful life events both have substantial impact on distress. Friend support reduced distress under lower-stress conditions, while family support reduced distress under high-stress conditions. These results suggest that social support from peers is critical for emotional well-being of persons with HIV in many circumstances, but that in periods of crisis family support becomes a more important determinant of emotional well-being.     

Total life stress: A multimethod validation of the construct and its effects on organizationally valued outcomes and withdrawal behaviors.

Measured the construct of total life stress using an 83-item checklist with 282 full-time, white collar administrative, health care, and clerical personnel working for 5 organizations (mean ages 37.45, 37.74, 36.15, 35.04, and 43.71 yrs). Checklist items concerned stressful job and personal life events. Regression analyses predicted 6 different organizational outcomes using the constructs of job stress, personal life stress, and total life stress, respectively. Greater understanding of the effects of stress was achieved when researchers recognized the separate effects of positive vs negative stress and considered the employee in a holistic perspective by taking into account the combined effects of job stress and personal life stress on employee well-being. Results provide evidence for the convergent validity of the total life stress construct as measured separately by its 2 components, total positive and total negative life stress. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Symptoms, hassles, social supports, and life events: Problem of confounded measures.

Recent stressful life events are related to a wide variety of psychological and physical disorders, but the relations have tended to be minimal. This has led investigators to introduce such factors as "hassles" and "social supports" in expanded investigations of life-stressed processes. As with life events scales, however, questions have been raised about whether the conceptual and operational distinctions have been clear enough to permit clear investigation of interrelations among these factors and adverse health changes. The present study examined judgments by 371 clinical psychologists of the extent to which items in leading stress instruments are likely to be symptoms of psychological disorder. Results indicate that each of the stress measures was confounded with measures of psychological distress, the Hassles Scale and the Instrumental-Expressive Support Scale more so than the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Types of life events and social supports are discussed in terms of their relative dependence on personality and psychopathology. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adolescents who work: Health and behavioral consequences of job stress.

Compared 212 10th and 11th graders holding their 1st part-time jobs with 319 youngsters who had never worked, with respect to self-reported frequency of psychological and physical health symptoms, school absence, and use of cigarettes, alcohol, marihuana, and other drugs. These aspects of health and well-being, along with job absence, were examined in the workers as a function of exposure to 6 types of job stress and to significant life changes. Findings indicate that workers, especially boys, reported fewer somatic symptoms than nonworkers; and that boys who worked under stress reported fewer somatic and psychological symptoms than boys who held less stressful jobs. Exposure to job stress was related to alcohol and marihuana use for both boys and girls. Although poor environmental conditions appeared to operate as a stressor for both sexes, some stressors were sex-specific: Constraints on autonomy adversely affected boys but not girls, whereas an impersonal work setting adversely affected girls but not boys. No support was found for the hypothesis that the effects of job stress are accentuated by more general life stress. These findings indicate that adolescents who work experience both benefits and disadvantages. However, closer examination of the apparent positive effects of working on boy's health suggests alternative explanations. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pregnancy-specific stress, prenatal health behaviors, and birth outcomes.

Objective: Stress in pregnancy predicts earlier birth and lower birth weight. The authors investigated whether pregnancy-specific stress contributes uniquely to birth outcomes compared with general stress, and whether prenatal health behaviors explain this association. Design: Three structured prenatal interviews (N = 279) assessing state anxiety, perceived stress, life events, pregnancy-specific stress, and health behaviors. Main Outcome Measures: Gestational age at delivery, birth weight, preterm delivery (     

Physical fitness and heart rate recovery from stress.

Examined relationships between a variety of exercise and fitness-related variables and heart rate recovery from a mental stressor. 108 women (mean age 26.4 yrs) participated in 2 laboratory sessions. In the 1st session, exercise and fitness measures were taken. In the 2nd session, Ss completed health and stress-related questionnaires, and heart rate recovery from a serial subtraction task was measured. Faster heart rate recovery was significantly correlated with several fitness indices including {v}{o}?Max, self-reported fitness level, and level of activity in sports. However, faster heart rate recovery was not associated with improved health or mood, or lower general life stress; benefits in these areas were related to higher levels of fitness and exercise. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships among life events, self-derogation, and psychological impairment in psychiatric outpatients.

Investigated relationships among stressful life events, self-derogation, and psychological impairment in 97 community mental health center outpatients to test predicted associations among the 3 variables and a path hypothesis linking life events to impairment via a self-derogatory reaction to life experiences. Results suggest that life events and self-derogation are each associated with impairment but that life events do not affect health–sickness via self-derogation. The possibility of inferring an etiological role for life events and self-derogation in psychopathology is briefly discussed. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)