The Unpleasant Events Schedule: a scale for the measurement of aversive events

This paper reports reliability and validity data on the Unpleasant Events Schedule (UES), a 320-item scale that assesses stressful life events. The UES assesses both the frequency and aversiveness of events within a 1-month time frame. Rational, empirical, and factorial scales were derived from the UES. Of these, nine scales were retained that were mutually independent, demonstrated good internal reliability, and tapped various dimensions of clinical interest. A short 53-item form of the UES also was developed. The UES correlated moderately (r = .37) with depression. A discriminant analysis revealed that the UES contributed significantly above and beyond scores on the PES (MacPhillamy & Lewinsohn, 1982) to the proportion of variance in discriminating depressed from nondepressed subjects.