Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T12:18:46.944Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Psychosocial Vulnerability to Life Events during the Climacteric

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

David J. Cooke
David J. Cooke*
Affiliation:
Douglas Inch Centre, 2 Woodside Terrace, Glasgow G3 7UY
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

The mid-life period is regarded as a period of profound physical and psychosocial change for women. Psychological disturbance at this time has been associated with discrete life events. The influence of other psychosocial variables on psychological disturbance is examined in a general population sample. Five psychosocial variables are shown to have a relationship with psychological disturbance, either in conjunction with or independently of life events. The implications of these findings for the understanding of psychological disturbance at this time are discussed.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 147 , Issue 1 , July 1985 , pp. 71 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bart, P. B. & Grossman, M. (1978) Menopause. In The Woman Patient: Medical and Psychological Interfaces (eds: Notman, M. T. & Nadelson, C. C.). New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. & Harris, T. O. (1978) Social Origins of Depression: A Study of Psychiatric Disorder in Women. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. & Prudo, R. (1981) Psychiatric disorder in a rural and an urban population: aetiology of depression. Psychological Medicine, 11, 581–599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, G. W., Sklair, F., Harris, T. O. & Birley, J. L. T. (1973) Life events and psychiatric disorders. Part I: some methodological issues. Psychological Medicine, 3, 74–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J. R. W. C. & Brown, M. E. C. (1976) Psychiatric disorders associated with the menopause. In The Menopause (ed: Beard, J.), Lancaster Lancs: M. T. P. Press.Google Scholar
Cobb, S. (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress. Psychosomatic Medicine, 38, 300–314.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. & Cohen, P. (1975) Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioural sciences. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Cooke, D. J. (1980a) The structure of depression found in the general population. Psychological Medicine, 10, 455–463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooke, D. J. (1980b) Some conceptual and methodological considerations of the problems inherent in the specification of the simple event syndrome link. In Stress and Anxiety, Vol. 7, 139–157. (eds: Sarason, I. G. & Spielberger, C. D.). New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Cooke, D. J. (1981) Life events and syndromes of depression in the general population. Social Psychiatry, 16, 181–186.Google Scholar
Cooke, D. J. (1982) Depression: demographic factors in the distribution of different syndromes in the general population. Social Psychiatry, 17, 29–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooke, D. J. (1983) Stressful life events as a cause of minor affective disorder: a theoretical and empirical evaluation. Ph.D. Thesis: University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
Cooke, D. J. (1984) Psychological aspects of the climacteric. In Psychology and Gynaecological Problems (eds: Broome, Annabel & Wallace, Louise). London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Cooke, D. J. 1985 The reliability of a Brief Life Event Interview. Journal of Psychosomatic Research (In press).Google Scholar
Cooke, D. J. & Allan, Carole A. (1983) Self-reported alcohol consumption and dissimulation in a Scottish urban sample. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 44, 617–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooke, D. J. & Allan, Carole A. (1984) Stressful life events and alcohol abuse in women: a general population study. British Journal of Addiction, 79, 425–430.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooke, D. J. & Greene, J. G. (1981) Types of life events in relation to symptoms at the climacterium. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 25, 5–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dominian, J. (1977) The role of psychiatry in the menopause. Clinics in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 4, 3–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Giele, J. Z. (1982) Women in adulthood: unanswered questions. In Women in the Middle years (ed: Giele, J. Z.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Greene, J. G. (1976) A factor analytic study of climacteric symptoms. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 20, 425–429.Google Scholar
Greene, J. G. & Cooke, D. J. (1980) Life stress and symptoms at the climacterium. British Journal of Psychiatry, 136, 486–491.Google Scholar
Henderson, S., Byrne, O. G., Duncan-Jones, P., Scott, R. & Adcock, S. (1980) Social relationships, adversity and neurosis: a study of association in a general population sample. British Journal of Psychiatry, 136, 574–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowenthal, M. F. & Haven, C. (1968) Interaction and adaptation: intimacy as a critical variable. American Sociological Review, 33, 20–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McKinley, S. M. & Jeffreys, M. (1974). The menopausal syndrome. British Journal of Preventative and Social Medicine, 28, 108–115.Google Scholar
Miller, P. McC. & Ingham, J. G. (1976) Friends, confidants and symptoms. Social Psychiatry, 11, 51–58.Google Scholar
Morrison, A. (1848) Outlines of lectures on the Nature, Causes and Treatment of Insanity. London: Longmans, Brown, Green, & Longmans.Google Scholar
Murphy, E. (1982) Social origins of depression in old age. British Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 315–142.Google Scholar
Neugarten, B. L. & Kraines, R. J. (1965) Menopausal symptoms in women of various ages. Psychosomatic Medicine, 27, 266.Google Scholar
Notman, M. (1979) Midlife concerns of women. Implications of the menopause. American Journal of Psychiatry, 136, 1270–1274.Google Scholar
Paykel, E. S., McGuiness, B. & Gomez, J. (1976) An Anglo-American comparison of the scaling of life events. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 49, 237–243.Google Scholar
Paykel, E. S., Weissman, M. M., Prusoff, B. A. & Tonks, C. M. (1971) Dimensions of social adjustment in depressed women. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 152, 158–172.Google Scholar
Silver, R. L. & Wortman, C. B. (1981) Coping with undesirable life events. In Human Helplessness: Theory and Applications (eds: Garber, J. & Seligman, M. E. P.). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Studd, J., Chakravarti, S. & Okram, D. (1977) The climacteric. Clinics in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 4, 3.Google Scholar
Weissman, M. M. (1979). The myth of involutional melancholia. Journal of The American Medical Association, 242, 742–744.Google Scholar
Winokur, G. (1973) Depression in the menopause. American Journal of Psychiatry, 130, 92–93.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.