Stress - Related illnesses: Phychiatric disorders

Stress and depression
1. Brown and Harris (1978) found that women who suffer chronic stress conditions e.g. being unemployed were more likely to develop depression
2. Melchior et al (2007) carried out a survey over a period of 1 year among 1000 people in a wide range of occupations in New Zeland
  1. found that 15% of those in high-stress jobs suffered a first episode of clinical depression or anxiety during that yearm compared with 8% in low-stress jobs
Stress and other disorders
1. after the Vietnam war ended in 1975 - the mass incidence of psychiatric symptoms among war veterans led to the 'discovery' of post traumatic stress disorder
  1. PTSD has been observed in war veterans and rape victims, as well as the victims of chronic stress such as poverty and abuse
    1. Peroetratuin Induced Traumatic Stress (PITS) (MacNair 2002) is a form of PTSD caused by being an active participant in causing trauma (e.g. soliders - where it is socially acceptable or expected for them to kill)
      1. Rohlf and Bennet (2005) found that 1 in 10 workers, whose occupations required euthanising animals, experienced moderate levels of PITS syndrome
2. Evidence for stress being linked to other psychiatric conditions is less strong than Rohlf and Bennet
  1. e.g. Stueve et al (1998) compared the role of stressful life event in causing depression, schizophrenia and other disorders
    1. found stressful events only associated with depression not with other disorders
3. evaluation
  1. the diathesis-stress model
    1. proposes that in order for a person to develop phychiatric disorders they must possess a biological vulnerability to that disorder (the diathesis)
      1. an individuals vulnerablility is determined by genetic or early biological factors (e.g. exposure to viral infections in the womb)
        stress can have an impact on that vulnerablility, either triggering the onset of the disorder or worsening its course
        if the person is not capable of adapting to the stressful situation psychiatric symptoms will develop or worsen
  2. it is frequently not possible to assess whether stressful events in the period before diagnosis of a phychiatric disorder have causes the disorder or been a consequence of the person's deteriorating state
  3. although the relationship between stress and depression has been demonstrated by some researchers, others (e.g. Rabkin 1993) claim that the effects are small, accounting for less than 10% of the variance observed

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Stress - Related illnesses: Phychiatric disorders

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