A comparison of two life stress assessment approaches: Prospective prediction of treatment outcome in recurrent depression

Research on life stress has been characterized by inconsistent results, whi ch some researchers attribute to different assessment methodologies. Genera lly, studies have used either self-report checklists or investigator-based interviews. To test whether different results are derived from these approa ches, the authors compared information from a self-report measure of life s tress with the additional data available from a follow-up investigator-base d measure in prospectively predicting the outcome of treatment for recurren t major depression. The 2 approaches produced different results, with inves tigator-based life events predicting lower probability of remission and sel f-report life events either predicting increased likelihood of remission or not predicting at all. The results demonstrated that methodology may accou nt for some of the inconsistencies in the life stress literature.