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Assessment of life stress in adolescents: self-report versus interview methods
S Duggal1, S Malkoff-Schwartz, B Birmaher
1Department of Psychiatry, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, PA 15213, USA.
Objective:
To compare the investigator-based Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (LEDS) with a self-report measure (Life Events Checklist [LEC]) for the purpose of measuring life stress in adolescents with and without a diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD).
Method:
Adolescents (aged 13-18 years) with a recent episode of MDD based on DSM-III-R (n = 35) and normal controls free of any Axis I lifetime psychiatric disorder (n = 35) were assessed using both the LEC and the LEDS.
Results:
Both measures predicted membership in the depressed and nondepressed groups of adolescents. Adolescents in the depressed group were more likely to report a severe event on the LEDS (97%) than adolescents in the nondepressed group (66%) (p = .001). Similarly, subjects in the depressed group endorsed a greater number of negative events (mean = 8.1) on the LEC than subjects in the nondepressed group (mean = 3.0) (p = .0001). An examination of potential provoking agents for episodes of major depression revealed that the LEC captured only 32% of preonset severe events and 36% of preonset major difficulties identified by the LEDS.
Conclusions:
Interpreted in light of relative advantages and disadvantages, the results suggest that checklist and interview measures each have distinct advantages depending on the purpose for which they are being used.