The development of an adolescent life change event scale

A questionnaire listing 31 personal, social and family changes believed stressful to adolescents was administered to 207 subjects aged eleven to eighteen. They were asked to rate the items on a scale of one to five to indicate how "upsetting" they believed the event was. They were also asked to indicate how many of the events they had actually experienced. The Adolescent Life Change Event Scale developed from this data is shown. It is recommended that the questionnaire be given to a much larger sample of adolescents from other socioeconomic, racial and cultural backgrounds before the final weightings are assigned to the scale. Once this has been done, the scale can be used to study relationships between life stress events and illness or other manifestations of stress in adolescents.