A NATIONWIDE STUDY OF STRESSFUL LIFE EVENTS IN MAINLAND CHINA

The Stressful Life Events Rating Scale, a recently developed instrumen t specifically designed for the measurement of stressful life events i n Mainland China, was administered along with the Chinese version of t he Hopkins Symptom Checklist to 4054 Chinese ''normal'' subjects who w ere sampled from 24 sites across Mainland China. ''Problems with Inter personal Relationship'' was the most commonly encountered psychosocial stressor in Chinese daily life. At least once a year, about 34% of no rmal Chinese subjects were stressed by being misunderstood or berated; 17% of married persons experienced difficulties with child rearing; 1 5% of married women had troubles with mothers-in-law. These stressors strongly influenced the well-being of Chinese residing in Mainland Chi na. Stressors in the categories of ''Study'' and ''Health'' also contr ibuted substantially. The life events experienced and stressfulness pe rceived varied in different life stages. Similarly, the major patterns of psychological responses obtained from the Hopkins Symptom Checklis t differed in age groups. Similar to reports from other cultures, deat h of spouse is the most stressful life event in China, On the other ha nd, the rank order of stressfulness of several other stressful life ev ents differed significantly across cultures. The impact of divorce was ranked more highly in mast previous Western studies, whereas among th e Chinese, death of a close family member received the second highest ranking. The total score of the Stressful Life Events Rating Scale for 99% of normal Chinese was below 74. A score over 74 suggests that the individual's psychosocial stress may be perceived as excessive or an overload and may be associated with a heightened risk of psychological and/or psychophysiological dysfunction(s).