Life stress and in particular key stressful events have long been linked with mental ill health. These researchers in Canada set out to look at the link between life events and psychopathology in people with learning disabilities and in particular, the link with hospital use.

The researchers asked key informants to complete a checklist of recent life events from the Psychiatric Assessment for Adults with Developmental Disabilities Checklist (PAS ADD checklist) in relation to 746 adults with learning disabilities who were known to have experienced as least one ‘crisis’. Informants were asked to state whether this crisis had resulted in a visit to a hospital emergency department.

They found that those who had experienced life events in the year were more likely to visit the emergency department in response to crisis than those who had not experienced life events.

The list of life events that were associated with increased likelihood of a visit to the emergency department were: Moving house or residence, serious problem with family, friends or caregivers, problems with the police or other authorities, being unemployed for more than 1 month, having experienced trauma or abuse and  having a drug or alcohol problem

The authors suggest that services could focus their efforts when considering intervention strategies on those people who experience life events, particularly those identified in this study, as these appear to be risk factors for hospital visits.

Life events and emergency department visits in response to crisis in individuals with intellectual disabilities, Lunsky, Y & Elserafi, J., in Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 55: 714–718.