A study of a stress questionnaire: the later years.

A twenty-seven item life stress questionnaire was derived from the Holmes-Rahe Social Readjustment Rating Scale, modified for older respondents, and administered to sixty-two patients hospitalized for neuro-behavioral diagnosis and treatment. The aims were to focus on significant life stresses and the patients' responses to these, and to identify those life events that were subjectively evaluated by the patients as significantly affecting their life adjustment. The study suggests that fewer than twenty items--seventeen in this investigation--may be an efficient range of events to estimate life change effects and that the degree of impact of these stresses must be sought out systematically if these phenomena are to be better understood.