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of them.
A qualitative approach to stressful life events during
adolescence
In order to make a qualitative analysis of the available
data, we examined each one of the stressors individually.
Figure 2 shows the list of events assessed, which appear
in order of frequency. Also shown is the mean emotional
impact score obtained for each one of these events, on a
scale from 1 to 10 (in brackets).
It can be seen, from the most common events that there
is a predomination of those related to school (change of
classmates, repeating a year, and change of school),
together with death of a close family member. However
the most impactful events were found to be those related
to the family and personal contexts: ones own or ones
partners pregnancy (average emotional impact of 8.17
on a maximum scale of 10), death of a family member,
and serious accident or illness (physical or mental)
suffered by a close relative (6.75 in all cases). Having a
serious accident or illness (6.47) and unfaithfulness of
ones partner (6.53) came next in order of the emotional
impact on the adolescents in our sample.
A joint analysis of frequency and emotional impact
revealed the presence of highly frequent events which
were, in turn, highly impactful, such as death of a family
member or a serious accident or illness suffered by a
close relative. However, other less frequent events also
had a high impact on the boys and girls, such as ones
own or ones partners pregnancy (which affected 1% of
the sample, with an average impact of 8.17), a mental
health problem in a family member (present in 11.3% of
cases but with a mean impact of 6.75), unfaithfulness of
ones partner (found in 9.8% of cases, with a mean
impact of 6.53) or addiction of a family member or close
friend (present in 15.6% of cases, with an average
impact of 6.15).
The experience of stressful events during adolescence
according to sex
Working with a large sample of adolescents led us to
explore the potential differences between boys and
girls experiences of stressful events.
Table 1 shows the scores broken down for the boys and
girls in our study, from a global perspective. The
statistical comparison of these scores, assuming equality
of variances at all times, revealed significant differences
in the emotional impact of these events. The girls in our
sample experienced each one of the stressors the most
negatively (t586 = 2.416, p = 0.016), despite the fact that
the number of events reported was similar to that for
VOLUME 13. NUMBER 1. 2009. PSYCHOLOGY IN SPAIN
DISCUSSION
The first objective of this study was to describe the
prevalence of stressful life events during adolescence
and its relationship to emotional impact. The results on
the prevalence of stressors emerging from our work (M
= 4.90) are quite similar to those obtained by the scales
creators (Oliva et al., 2008), and in line with previous
reviews (Goossens, 2006), confirming the notion of
vulnerability associated with adolescence to which we
referred in the introduction to this work.
Likewise, it is not surprising that our research results
allow us to confirm the thesis of the accumulation of risk
factors during adolescence (explained at the beginning
of this article) through the assessment of everyday,
negative stressful events. The correlation between the
number of stressful events and the average, positive and
statistically significant emotional impact allows us to
infer that the greater the number of stressful events
Figure 1
Sample distribution of stressful events experienced globally
Table 1
Descriptive and contrast statistics for the accumulation
and emotional impact of stressful life events experienced
globally by boys and girls
Girls
M (SD)
Contrast test
5.62 (3.76)
5.99 (3.47)
t613 = 1.258
Emotional impact
4.66 (2.15)
5.10 (2.18)
t586 = 2.416*
Frequency
Boys
M (SD)
Table 2
Descriptive and contrast statistics for the accumulation (AC) and emotional impact (EI)
of each stressful life event experienced by boys and girls
Boys
Change of classmates
Death of family member
Repeating school year
Change of school
Quarrel/Break-up with friend
Conflict with peers
Problems with classmates
Quarrel between parents
Break-up with parents
Family illness/accident
Moving house
Deception by friend
Birth of sibling
Family/Friend.s addiction
Problems at school
Financial problems
Family member leaving
Parents. divorce
Addiction
Chronic parental conflict
Friend.s conflicts
Family mental illness
Arrival of family member
Illness
Partner.s unfaithfulness
Parent.s new partner
Parents. lack of interest in education
Sexual harassment/abuse
Own/Partner.s pregnancy
Girls
Contrast test1
AC(%)
EI(M)
AC(%)
EI(M)
AC(%)
EI(M)
43.5%
46.9%
34.8%
28.1%
21.9%
33.2%
29.7%
25.2%
26.5%
24.8%
24.2%
17.4%
15.8%
16.1%
18.7%
14.8%
12.9%
11.6%
14.5%
11.6%
12.0%
10.6%
11.7%
11.7%
9.7%
5.5%
7.7%
1.6%
1.3%
3.60
7.33
5.38
4.29
5.30
3.82
4.30
5.38
4.69
6.41
3.65
5.27
3.40
5.63
5.21
5.26
3.95
6.00
4.51
5.18
4.81
6.18
2.44
5.94
6.39
3.13
5.35
5.33
8.00
41.2%
41.7%
28.8%
34.6%
39.5%
25.2%
26.9%
30.5%
26.9%
25.2%
24.6%
31.1%
18.5%
14.9%
12.3%
15.2%
15.3%
15.9%
11.3%
11.3%
11.0%
12.0%
10.7%
10.7%
9.7%
8.8%
6.5%
2.6%
0.6%
3.75
7.72
4.24
4.19
5.97
4.57
4.50
6.37
5.41
7.25
3.82
6.17
1.93
6.73
5.03
5.20
4.53
6.28
4.88
6.00
6.61
7.28
3.64
7.03
6.53
4.15
6.05
5.50
8.50
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
2 =3.10*
2 =22.40***
2 =4.77*
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
2 =15.70***
n.s.
n.s.
2 =4.85*
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
t189 =-2.55*
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
t167 =2.27*
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
t76.368 =-2.58*
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
t68 =2.43*
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.