The British Journal of Psychiatry 147: 517-523 (1985)
© 1985 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Recent undesirable life events and psychiatric disorder in childhood and adolescence
I Goodyer, I Kolvin and S Gatzanis
A sample of children and adolescents (n = 157) attending a child psychiatry
outpatient clinic with conduct or emotional disturbance were compared with
community controls (n = 76) for the number and type of recent life events.
A Life Events Schedule for children and adolescents was developed and used
as a semi-structured interview. Four clinical groups were identified
according to their predominant presenting symptoms (conduct, mild mood,
severe mood, or somatic). An excess of events carrying a severe degree of
negative impact was found for all four groups, compared with matched
controls. Eleven classes of events were examined: there is a suggestion
that two classes (martial/family, accident/illness) may be more important
for conduct and mild mood disorders, and that a further class (permanent
separations, termed exits) may be more important for somatic and severe
mood disorders.
