Life-events in two adolescent groups of different socio-economical level.

Stress and adolescence are important themes in clinical psychological resea rch, nevertheless there arc few studies that deal with the influence of str ess in adolescence, and even more so in Mexico. The objective of this study is to determine the differences between the occurrence of stressful life-e vents considering gender, age and socio-economical level in two groups of M exican adolescents. In addition the differences in the cognitive assessment that the two groups of Mexican adolescents make of stressful life events c onsidering gender, age and socioeconomical level, were determined. To accomplish this objective the sociodemographic and life-events questionn aire in its two versions was used. The questionnaire was administered to a sample of 1071 Mexican adolescents (547 females and 524 males), from two di fferent socio-economical levels (high level: 275 females and 262 males; low level: 272 females and 262 males) age range from 13 to IS l-ears of age (m ean = 15.52). The sample was conformed into three age groups: 13-14,15-16,1 7-18. ANOVA and the Student t test were used in order to analyse the results obta ined. Results show that boys reported more stressful life-events; the group s of low socioeconomical level reported more stressful life-events when com pared to the high socioeconomical group. The 17-18 years old boa's of low e conomic level reported more stressful life-events. No significant differenc es were observed between the groups of girls. However, in the cognitive assessment that adolescents make of stressful lif e-events, the ones between 17 and 18 years old, from the low socioeconomica l le el, assessed stressful life-events more frequently, as indifferent, po sitive or negative. In the negative assessment, the greater significant dif ferences were found in the 17-18 age boys group of low socioeconomical leve l, in comparison with the other groups of boys, On the other hand, there we re no significant differences within the groups of girls. The results of this stud's agree,vith the results of studies carried out in other countries, which show that stressful life events increase in older a dolescents.