Life events, psychiatric disturbance and physical illness.
The relationship between life events and the onset of organic physical illness has been studied in a group of women in the general population. The link between severe events and the onset of organic illness, which held only for women of 50 years or younger, was not a direct causal association but mediated by an intervening psychiatric disturbance of an affective kind, all occurring within a six month period. The findings are discussed in the light of the high psychiatric morbidity found in physically ill patients.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D013997:Time Factors