Life events play a role in the development of childhood depression. According to the literature major depression lowers subjective quality of life (QL). There are few studies about factors decreasing QL in general and even less on child and adolescent samples. The relationship between mental disorders and QL is not well studied either. In the present research we studied the quality of life in a school population and the relationship of QL to the number of stressful life events (SLE) and the severity of depressive symptoms.

The sample consisted of 9 elementary schools in Hungary. 2620 children were tested between 7-15 years of age (mean age: 10.45 years (s.d. 2.2). There were 1160 boys (44%) and 1460 girls (56%). Stressful life events were collected by parental report, depressive symptoms were assessed by short version of CDI, quality of life was measured by self-report and parental questionnaires (ILK).

Both stressful life events and depressive symptoms have a significant negative effect on subjective QL overall and individual QL domains. The effect of depressive symptom severity is much larger than that of the SLE. When comparing the parent and child opinions about the QL of the child, we can see that depressive symptoms are more important in childrens' opinion while SLE is more negative in parents' opinion. Stressful life events effect subjective QL directly (50%), indirectly (50%) through depressive symptoms. A complex study of the QL in childhood onset mental disorders would be important.