[Stress factors and chronic illness]

We carried out a comparative evaluation of the stress experienced by a sample of French subjects, with and without chronic illnesses. The study population consisted of 1,337 men and 914 women who responded to a questionnaire published in the monthly magazine Science et Vie. This questionnaire, the Hassles Scale, was developed by Lazarus et al. and is designed to determine which of the 61 stress factors on the scale experienced by the subjects and to measure their intensity. The subjects were also asked whether they were affected by one of seven types of chronic illness; 26% of the subjects reported that they were affected by a chronic illness. We found that having a chronic illness increased the susceptibility to stress (as estimated from the intensity scores) of women, young people, manual workers and other employees. Scale scores differed considerably according to the illness reported, subjects with mental illnesses having the highest scores. The stress factors related to health were, not surprisingly, estimated to be more disturbing by those with chronic illnesses than by the other subjects. Environmental noise and pollution were among the stresses most frequently reported by all subjects, regardless of whether or not they reported having a chronic illness.