Life stress and the symptoms of major depression

Life stress has been found to be associated with onset of depression and wi th greater severity of depressive symptoms. It is unclear, though, if Life stress is related to particular classes or specific symptoms in depression. The association between severe Life events and depressive symptoms was tes ted in 59 individuals diagnosed by Research Diagnostic Criteria with endoge nous primary nonpsychotic major depression. As predicted, Life stress was a ssociated principally with cognitive-affective symptoms, not somatic: sympt oms. There also was a consistent association across different assessment me thods between severe events and suicidal ideation. Finally, associations he ld specifically for set-ere events occurring before onset, not for severe e vents occurring after onset. Symptom variation in major depression is relat ed specifically to severe stressors before onset and includes primarily cog nitive-affective types of symptoms. There is an especially pronounced assoc iation of prior severe stress with suicidal ideation. The implications of s tress-symptom associations are addressed for enlarging understanding of sym ptom heterogeneity and subtype distinctions in major depression.