Life stress and psychologic adjustment following spinal cord injury.

Previous research on psychologic adjustment following spinal cord injury has not systematically investigated the impact of negative life events from contemporary perspectives. In order to examine the effects of life stress on adjustment, 53 spinal cord injured patients were assessed by the Symptom Checklist-90, Beck Depression Inventory, and a measure of life events. Patients who were experiencing higher subjective levels of life stress displayed more distress than those reporting lower levels of life stress. The findings were not mediated by the passage of time since injury.