Paykel E S
Psychol Med. 1978 May;8(2):245-53. doi: 10.1017/s003329170001429x.
This paper discusses the magnitude of the effect of life events in the causation of psychiatric illness. It is argued that an established epidemiological concept, relative risk, provides a useful measure of association which can be approximately adapted for retrospective controlled studies. Examination of studies employing general population controls consistently indicates effects of some importance, with risks of illness increased by factors of between 2 and 7 in the 6 months after an event. Risks are greater for the more stressful types of events, greater for depression and neuroses than schizophrenia, and even greater for suicide attempts. However, similar events occur commonly and a large proportion of event occurrences are not followed by illness. Events must interact with a wide variety of background factors, and the appropriate model is one of multifactorial causation.
本文探讨生活事件在精神疾病病因学中所产生影响的程度。有人认为，一个既定的流行病学概念——相对风险，提供了一种有用的关联度量方法，这种方法可大致适用于回顾性对照研究。对采用普通人群作为对照的研究进行审查后发现，某些重要影响始终存在，在事件发生后的6个月内，患病风险增加了2至7倍。压力更大的事件类型导致的风险更高，抑郁症和神经症的风险高于精神分裂症，而自杀未遂的风险更高。然而，类似的事件很常见，而且很大一部分事件发生后并未引发疾病。事件必须与各种各样的背景因素相互作用，合适的模型是多因素因果关系模型。
