Life change events and mental illness: an overview.

The use of recent life change measurement in the lives of persons developing mental disorders parallels the measurement of risk factors by epidemiologists to understand disease distribution. Examples are given of these parallels, along with critical commentary on methodological issues in life changes research. The principal studies documenting the association of recent life change and depression, schizophrenia, and neurosis are reviewed. Recent life changes appear to be an important element in explaining illness onset. Future advances in the area of life change and illness await the development of reliable and valid measures of an individual's stress tolerance characteristics, such as social support systems, psychological defenses, coping capabilities, and illness behavior tendencies.