Magnitude of Life Events and Seriousness of Illness

A study investigating the relationship between the quantity of life change that patients have undergone during the 2 years before the onset of their illness, and the seriousness of that illness, is described in this report. The sample represented 42 disease items and 232 patients. Thirty-six percent of the life change for the 2-year period was found during the 6-month period prior to onset of the illness. A significant positive relationship of life events to illness magnitude was found. For the three time periods of 6 months, 1 year and 2 years prior to illness onset, the correlation was 0.302, 0.321 and 0.356, respectively. When the diseases were separated into acute and chronic categories, the latter showed a highly significant positive correlation (rs > 0.648) in all time periods, while the former, contrastingly, did not.