THE ROLE OF LIFE EVENTS IN ONSET AND RECURRENT EPISODES OF SCHIZOPHRENIA AND SCHIZOAFFECTIVE DISORDER

The experience of both positive and negative recent life events has lo ng been recognized as a possible precipitant of episodes of psychiatri c illness. Among individuals with recurrent mood disorders, investigat ors have found that recent life events are more likely to be associate d with initial and early episodes of illness, with later episodes less likely to be temporally associated with life events. This study inves tigated the relationship between recent life events and episodes of il lness in schizophrenia (defined as the number of acute episodes of sch izophrenia requiring hospitalization). Among 32 male U.S. Military vet eran inpatients, those with three or fewer episodes of illness reporte d significantly more recent life events than those patients with more than three episodes of illness (P = 0.01). Overall, recent life events were negatively correlated with number of episodes (P < 0.05). These data suggest that initial or early episodes of schizophrenic illness a re more likely to be associated with recent life events than are later episodes. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.