DAILY EVENTS AND MOOD PRIOR TO THE ONSET OF RESPIRATORY ILLNESS EPISODES - A NON-REPLICATION OF THE 3-5 DAY DESIRABILITY DIP

We attempted to replicate and extend the findings of three previous st udies (Evans & Edgerton, 1991; Evans, Pitts & Smith, 1988; Stone, Reed & Neale, 1987) that found a lagged relationship between daily life ev ents, mood and the onset of episodes of respiratory illness. The findi ngs and methods of the three previous studies are reviewed, and simila rities and differences in their analytic approaches are discussed. Sev enty-nine middle-aged male subjects completed daily records of life ev ents, mood and symptoms for an average of 83 days. Twenty-three men su ffered at least one illness episode that met our selection criteria. U sing the methodology of Stone et al. (1987) and Evans et al. (1988), w e were unable to detect a relationship between daily events or mood an d the onset of illness episodes. The necessity of standardizing proced ures of defining illness episodes and control days and the importance of including analyses of variables that may mediate the relationship b etween events and illness are discussed.