Assessment of major and daily stressful events during adolescence: The Adolescent Perceived Events Scale.

Abstract

Four studies were conducted to develop a measure of major and daily stressful events during adoles-cence, the Adolescent Perceived Events Scale (APES). Study I identified an item pool of events that were drawn from the open-ended reports of adolescents. In Study 2, multidimensional scaling analy-sis was used to identify the salient features of stressful events that were cognitively appraised by adolescents. Study 3 examined the test-retest reliability of the APES, and Study 4 examined the concurrent validity of the measure among older adolescents. Subsequent research is summarized that has shown the APES to be significantly related to behavior problems and psychological symp-tomatology in a wide age range of adolescents, and directions for future research are outlined. The stressful life events encountered by individuals consti-tute an important factor in the etiology and course of a variety of psychological and behavioral problems. The relation of both major life events and daily stressors with a range of symptoms and disorders has been well-documented in adults (see Lazarus, 1984; Thoits, 1983). Studies of these relations among children and adolescents, although promising, have been more limited in their number and scope (Compas, in press; Johnson, 1986). Further examination of the nature and effects of stressful events during childhood and adolescence may depend in part on ad-vances in the methods used to measure stressful events in youn-ger age groups. Six checklists of life events have been developed for use with

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