Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T18:53:53.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Misfortune and resilience: a community study of women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

P. E. Bebbington*
Affiliation:
MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
E. Sturt
Affiliation:
MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
C. Tennant
Affiliation:
MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
J. Hurry
Affiliation:
MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr P. E. Bebbington, MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF.

Synopsis

A community survey of psychiatric disorder carried out in South London enabled the authors to investigate the ‘vulnerability model’ proposed by Brown & Harris (1978). In the current study none of the ‘vulnerability factors’ proposed by Brown & Harris fulfilled the requirements of the model. It was, however, found that working class women with children seemed particularly prone to develop minor psychiatric disorder in response to adversity. A similar result is apparent in the analyses of the earlier authors. A number of studies now published give some support to the vulnerability model using what are broadly measures of social support, but there is little corroboration using the other variables proposed by Brown & Harris.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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

Bebbington, P. E., Hurry, J. & Tennant, C. (1980). Recent advances in the epidemiology of minor affective disorders in the community. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 73, 315317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bebbington, P. E., Hurry, J., Tennant, C., Sturt, E. & Wing, J. K. (1981 á). The epidemiology of mental disorders in Camberwell. Psychological Medicine 11, 561580.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bebbington, P. E., Tennant, C. & Hurry, J. (1981 b). Life events and the nature of psychiatric disorder in the community. Journal of Affective Disorders 3, 345366.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bebbington, P. E., Hurry, J. & Tennant, C. (1981 c). Psychiatric disorders in selected immigrant groups in Camberwell. Social Psychiatry 16, 4351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, G. W. & Harris, T. (1978). The Social Origins of Depression. Tavistock: London.Google ScholarPubMed
Brown, G. W. & Prudo, R. (1981). Psychiatric disorder in a rural and an urban population: 1. Aetiology of depression. Psychological Medicine 11, 581599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, G. W., Ní Bhrolchaín, M. & Harris, T. O. (1975). Social class and psychiatric disturbance among women in an urban population. Sociology 9, 225254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, G. W., Harris, T. O. & Copeland, J. R. (1977). Depression and loss. British Journal of Psychiatry 130, 118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Campbell, E. A., Cope, S. J. & Teasdale, J. D. (1983). Social factors and affective disorder: an investigation of Brown and Harris' model. British Journal of Psychiatry 143, 548553.Google Scholar
Costello, C. G. (1982). Social factors associated with depression: a retrospective community study. Psychological Medicine 12, 329339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duncan-Jones, P. (1981). The natural history of neurosis: probability models. In What is a Case? The Problem of Definition in Psychiatric Community Surveys (ed. Wing, J. K., Bebbington, P. E. and Robins, L. N.), pp. 161182. Grant McIntyre: London.Google Scholar
Finlay-Jones, R., Brown, G. W., Duncan-Jones, P., Harris, T., Murphy, E. & Prudo, R. (1980). Depression and anxiety in the community: replicating the diagnosis of a case. Psychological Medicine 10, 445454.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldthorpe, J. & Hope, K. (1974). The Social Grading of Occupations: A New Approach and Scale. Oxford University Press: London.Google Scholar
Haberman, S. J. (1973). The analysis of residuals in cross-classified tables. Biometrics 29, 205220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, A. S., Byrne, D. G. & Duncan-Jones, P. (1981). Neurosis and the Social Environment. Academic Press: Sydney.Google Scholar
Hurry, J. & Sturt, E. (1981). Social performance in a population sample: relation to psychiatric symptoms. In What is a Case? The Problem of Definition in Psychiatric Community Surveys (ed. Wing, J. K., Bebbington, P. E. and Robins, L. N.), pp. 202216. Grant McIntyre: London.Google Scholar
Hurry, J., Tennant, C. & Bebbington, P. E. (1980). The selective factors leading to psychiatric referral. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica Supplementum 285, 315323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, C. (1982). Psychosocial stress and puerperal psychiatric disorder.Paper presented to the Marcé Society.Google Scholar
Murphy, E. (1982). Social origins of depressions in old age. British Journal of Psychiatry 141, 135142.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parry, G. (1983). The mental health of employed and unemployed mothers: beyond the global comparison. SAPU Memo 576, University of Sheffield. Submitted for publication.Google Scholar
Paykel, E. S., Ems, E. M., Fletcher, J. & Ratsaby, E. S. (1980). Life events and social support in puerperal depression. British Journal of Psychiatry 136, 339346.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prudo, R., Brown, G. W., Harris, T. & Dowland, J. (1981). Psychiatric disorder in a rural and an urban population: 2 Sensitivity to loss. Psychological Medicine 11, 601616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solomon, Z. & Bromet, E. (1982). The role of social factors in affective disorder: an assessment of the vulnerability model of Brown and his colleagues. Psychological Medicine 12, 123130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sturt, E., Bebbington, P. E., Hurry, J. & Tennant, C. (1981). The Present State Examination used by interviewers from a Survey Agency: report from the Camberwell Community Survey. Psychological Medicine 11, 185192.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennant, C. & Bebbington, P. (1978). The social causation of depression: a critique of the work of Brown and his colleagues. Psychological Medicine 8, 565575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tennant, C., Smith, A., Bebbington, P. & Hurry, J. (1979). The contextual threat of life events: the concept and its reliability. Psychological Medicine 9, 525528.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennant, C., Hurry, J. & Bebbington, P. E. (1980). Parent–child separations during childhood: their relation to adult psychiatric morbidity and to psychiatric referral. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica Supplementum 285, 324331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tennant, C., Hurry, J. & Bebbington, P. (1981 a). The short-term outcome of neurotic illness in the community: demographic and clinical predictors of remission. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 15, 111116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tennant, C., Bebbington, P. & Hurry, J. (1981 b). The short-term outcome of neurotic disorders in the community: the relation of remission to clinical factors and to ‘neutralising’ life events. British Journal of Psychiatry 139, 213220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennant, C., Smith, A., Bebbington, P. & Hurry, J. (1981 c). Parental loss in childhood, adult psychiatric impairment and contact with psychiatric services. Archives of General Psychiatry 38, 309314.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennant, C., Bebbington, P. & Hurry, J. (1982 a). Social experiences in childhood and adult psychiatric morbidity: a multiple regression analysis. Psychological Medicine 12, 321327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennant, C., Bebbington, P. & Hurry, J. (1982 b). The relation of different types of childhood separation experiences to adult psychiatric disorder. British Journal of Psychiatry 141, 475482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warr, P. & Parry, G. (1982). Paid employment and women's psychological well-being. Psychological Bulletin 91, 498516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wing, J. K. (1980 a). Methodological issues in psychiatric case identification. Psychological Medicine 10, 510.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wing, J. K. (1980 b). The use of the Present State Examination in general population surveys. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica Supplementum 285, 230240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wing, J. K. & Bebbington, P. E. (1982). Epidemiology of depressive disorders in the community. Journal of Affective Disorders 4, 331345.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wing, J. K. & Sturt, E. (1978). The PSE-ID-CATEGO System: A Supplementary Manual. Institute of Psychiatry: London (mimeo).Google Scholar
Wing, J. K., Cooper, J. E. & Sartorius, N. (1974). The Measurement and Classification of Psychiatric Symptoms. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K., Mann, S. A., Leff, J. P. & Nixon, J. N. (1978). The concept of a ‘case’ in psychiatric population surveys. Psychological Medicine, 8, 203217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wing, J. K., Bebbington, P. E., Hurry, J. & Tennant, C. (1981). The prevalence in the general population of disorders familiar to psychiatrists in hospital practice. In What is a Case? The Problem of Definition in Psychiatric Community Surveys (ed. Wing, J. K., Bebbington, P. E. and Robins, L. N.), pp. 4561. Grant McIntyre: London.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1978). Mental Disorders: Glossary and Guide to their Classification in Accordance with the Ninth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases. WHO: Geneva.Google Scholar