Negative life events and symptoms of depression and anxiety: stress causation and/or stress generation

“…Easton, Morley, & Snaith, 1988; Herrmann, 1997), performs well as a psychiatric screening device (Bjelland, Dahl, Haug, & Neckelmann, 2002; Herrmann, 1997), and boasts acceptable psychometric properties; for example, a Cronbach’s α of .90 for the depression items and .93 for the anxiety…”

“The present life events assessment method is based on the well-established Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (Brown & Harris, 1989) and included the same domains of personal experience.”

“…demonstration of the phenomenon, a small group of women with unipolar depression were observed to experience more stressful life events over one year of follow-up than demographically matched groups of women with bipolar disorder, chronic physical illness, or no disorder/disease (Hammen, 1991).”

“…Harkness, Monroe, Simons, & Thase, 1999) as well as in nonclinical populations with elevated levels of depressive symptomatology (Hankin, Kassel, & Abela, 2005; Joiner, Wingate, Gencoz, & Gencoz, 2005; Liu & Alloy, 2010; Potthoff, Holahan, & Joiner, 1995); for a review see Liu and Alloy (2010).”

“Based on previous research (Hammen, 2006), it was hypothesized that a stress generation effect would be observed and it would be of at least equal magnitude to the stress causation effect on symptomatology of stressful life events.”

“…boasts acceptable psychometric properties; for example, a Cronbach’s α of .90 for the depression items and .93 for the anxiety items has been reported (Moorey et al., 1991), and test– retest reliability coefficients as high as .85 for depression and .84 for anxiety have been found (Herrmann, 1997).”

“However, there are exceptions, although these have often shown effects to be stronger among females (Rudolph & Hammen, 1999; Shih, 2006); thus, it is also important to examine sex differences in a large diverse sample, particularly as several previous studies have focused mainly on females and/or…”

“However, previous studies have also observed stress generation effects in nonclinical populations with elevated levels of symptomatology e.g., Hankin et al., 2005; Joiner et al., 2005; Potthoff et al., 1995; Uliaszek et al., 2012).”

“That stressful life events contribute to the development of depressive symptomatology is hardly a novel finding (Brown & Harris, 1978; Brown et al., 1973).”

“Others have found evidence of an association between life events and anxiety symptomatology (Hadley et al., 2008), and the onset of anxiety disorders (Blazer, Hughes, & George, 1987).”

“…age of the sample was greater than that in most studies of stress generation, where adolescents or university undergraduates have been studied (Bodell et al., 2012; Connolly et al., 2010; Joiner et al., 2005; Potthoff et al., 1995; Riskind et al., 2010; Riskind et al., 2013; Uliaszek et al., 2012).”

“In the present sample, we have observed lower depression but higher anxiety among the older cohort than the youngest cohort (Carroll et al., 2007), which might explain why anxiety was a stronger predictor of stress generation in the present analyses.”

“…age of the sample was greater than that in most studies of stress generation, where adolescents or university undergraduates have been studied (Bodell et al., 2012; Connolly et al., 2010; Joiner et al., 2005; Potthoff et al., 1995; Riskind et al., 2010; Riskind et al., 2013; Uliaszek et al., 2012).”

“Individuals with such characteristics have been shown to have more daily hassles and life events (Dunkley, Blankstein, Holsall, Williams, & Winkworth, 2000; Priel & Shahar, 2000).”

“The term “active vulnerability” has been coined to describe models in which individuals generate, rather than simply react to, stressful life events (Shahar & Priel, 2003).”

“Support for this contention can be found in the epidemiological literature where those with anxiety or comorbid and anxiety and depression had poorer health outcomes than those with depression alone (Carroll, Phillips, Gale, & Batty, 2010; Carroll et al., 2009; Phillips et al., 2009).”

“Indeed, in the epidemiological studies above (Carroll et al., 2010, 2009; Phillips et al., 2009), the average age of the sample was greater than that in most studies of stress generation, where adolescents or university undergraduates have been studied (Bodell et al., 2012; Connolly et al., 2010;…”

“It has been argued that depressive symptoms generate the perception but not the occurrence of stress (Joiner et al., 2005).”

“However, there are exceptions, although these have often shown effects to be stronger among females (Rudolph & Hammen, 1999; Shih, 2006); thus, it is also important to examine sex differences in a large diverse sample, particularly as several previous studies have focused mainly on females and/or…”

“Negative life events and symptoms of depression and anxiety: stress causation and/or stress generation Anna C. Phillipsa*, Douglas Carrolla and Geoff Derb aSchool of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; bMRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, 4 Lilybank Gardens, G…”

“It is possible that this prediction of future anxiety emerges for women rather than men as the characteristics considered antecedents of anxiety mentioned above are more common among women (Costa, Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001; Elgin & Pritchard, 2006).”

“…age of the sample was greater than that in most studies of stress generation, where adolescents or university undergraduates have been studied (Bodell et al., 2012; Connolly et al., 2010; Joiner et al., 2005; Potthoff et al., 1995; Riskind et al., 2010; Riskind et al., 2013; Uliaszek et al., 2012).”

“…age of the sample was greater than that in most studies of stress generation, where adolescents or university undergraduates have been studied (Bodell et al., 2012; Connolly et al., 2010; Joiner et al., 2005; Potthoff et al., 1995; Riskind et al., 2010; Riskind et al., 2013; Uliaszek et al., 2012).”

“Studies have observed greater stress generation in individuals with comorbid anxiety than depression alone (Harkness & Luther, 2001), although depressive symptoms appear to strongly drive this effect (Connolly, Eberhart, Hammen, & Brennan, 2010).”

“As some previous studies focused only on depression and stress generation (e.g., Chun et al., 2004), it is difficult to know whether they might similarly have observed effects for anxiety too.”

“…age of the sample was greater than that in most studies of stress generation, where adolescents or university undergraduates have been studied (Bodell et al., 2012; Connolly et al., 2010; Joiner et al., 2005; Potthoff et al., 1995; Riskind et al., 2010; Riskind et al., 2013; Uliaszek et al., 2012).”

“…age of the sample was greater than that in most studies of stress generation, where adolescents or university undergraduates have been studied (Bodell et al., 2012; Connolly et al., 2010; Joiner et al., 2005; Potthoff et al., 1995; Riskind et al., 2010; Riskind et al., 2013; Uliaszek et al.,…”

“In fact, stress has been linked to the development of both depression and anxiety, with a key contribution of microglia activation, as well as of recruitment of peripheral macrophages into the brain to such events (Phillips et al., 2015; Réus et al., 2015).”

“In fact, stress has been linked to the development of both depression and anxiety (Phillips et al., 2015).”

“297 Furthermore, a study using a murine cell line model of Huntington ’ s disease identi fi ed 23 differentially expressed cir-cRNAs signi fi cantly enriched in the MAPK, dopaminergic synapse, and long-term depression pathways.”

“This “stress generation” effect is relevant for anxiety and, to a lesser degree, depression (Phillips et al., 2015).”