[The status of life events in causal analytic considerations in child and adolescent psychiatry: model development...

An epidemiological longitudinal child psychiatric study with 334 eight- and thirteen-year-olds tried to put life events in an optimal order within a model of causal interrelations. The causal connections were tested by a Linear Structural Relationship Analysis (LISREL), which in addition to life events included child psychiatric disorders, adverse family factors and learning disabilities. By testing different models it could be demonstrated, that adverse family factors do not directly influence the number of life events of 8 to 13-year-old children. Adverse family factors influence life events as well as psychiatric disorders at age 13 predominantly by way of early psychiatric disorders. Psychiatric disorders at age 13 are best predicted by psychiatric disorders at age 8 and to a smaller degree by life events and learning disabilities.