Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Life Changes
- Life changes are infrequent, major events such
as getting married, retiring, Christmas holidays
etc.
- Holmes and Rahe (1967) developed a questionnaire
called the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) for
identifying major stressful life events. Each life event is
given a score to indicate how stressful it is.
- The aim of this study was to investigate whether scores on the
Holmes and Rahe Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) were
correlated with the subsequent onset of illness
- Procedure: 2,500 male American sailors were given the
SRRS to assess how many life events they had experienced
in the previous 6 months. The total score on the SRRS was
recorded for each participant. Then over the following
six-month tour of duty, detailed records were kept of each
sailor’s health status. The recorded number of Life Change
Units were correlated with the sailors’ illness scores.
- Results: There was a positive correlation of +0.0118 between Life Change scores and
illness scores. Although the positive correlation was small (a perfect positive correlation
would be +1.00), it did indicate that there was a meaningful relationship between Life
Change Units and health (this is often referred to as a statistically significant
correlation). As Life Change Units increased, so did the frequency of illness.
- The researchers concluded that as Life Change Units were positively correlated with illness scores,
experiencing life events increased the chances of stress-related health breakdown. As the correlation
was not perfect, life events cannot be the only factor in contributing to illness.