Note on Reliability of the Life Events Checklist

The Life Events Checklist is a recently published measure of child and adolescent life stress (1) listing 46 life events to which subjects respond by indicating events experienced within the past year, rating these events as positive or negative, and rating the impact of these events along a four-point scale (no effect to great effect). By summing the impact ratings of events rated as positive and negative it is possible to derive positive and negative life change scores, respectively. While validity indicated by correlations between these scores and measures of health and adjustment has been provided ( 1 ) , reliability has not been adequately assessed. The present report provides such data. A total of 50 subjects (23 male, 27 female), ranging in age from 10 to 17 yr. (M = 13), drawn from the university laboratory school, were given the checklist and subsequently retested after two weeks. Positive and negative life-change scores were obtained by summing the impact ratings of events judged as desirable and undesirable (Impact rating procedure) and also by simply summing the numbers of positive and negative events experienced, giving each event a weight of one (Unit rating procedure). Here the Impact rating procedure was employed only with children aged 13 to 17 yr. (n = 27). Pearson product-moment correlations assessed the relationships between scores obtained at the first and second testings. Using the simple Unit rating procedure (sum of + events; sum of - events) the test-retest correlations for positive and negative life-change scores were .69 (9 < ,001) and .72 (p < .001), respectively. Normative dam were obtained from each time of