O desenvolvimento humano, presente desde a formação primária do indivíduo é constituído pelo conjunto das experiências vividas durante infância, incluindo as experiências de estresse precoce. Tais vivências repercutem nas ações do sujeito, podendo ser importante no aparecimento da depressão. Objetivos: explorar e analisar o significado do Estresse Precoce para portadores de depressão e construir um modelo teórico sobre o fenômeno estudado; caracterizar a amostra quanto às características sociodemográficas e de saúde; explorar e analisar, à luz do Interacionismo Simbólico, o significado do estresse precoce entre adultos portadores de depressão. Método: Estudo qualitativo que teve como referencial teórico norteador o Interacionismo Simbólico e como referencial metodológico a Teoria Fundamentada nos Dados. Os participantes desse estudo foram portadores de depressão que vivenciaram Estresse Precoce, recrutados no Centro de Atenção Psicossocial - CAPS III do interior paulista. Instrumentos utilizados: Childhood Trauma Questionnaire -CTQ, questionário sociodemográfico e entrevista em profundidade. O número de participantes foi se configurando conforme a análise da teoria emergente (amostragem teórica), totalizando 12 participantes. Resultados: a análise dos dados permitiu identificar o modelo teórico \"Caminhando entre a infância traumática e a vida adulta com depressão\". Sete categorias estruturaram a experiência relatada pelos participantes do estudo: \"Vivenciando o Estresse Precoce\"; \"Sentindo diferenciação de tratamento dentro no núcleo familiar\"; \"Percebendo a distribuição de papeis dentro do núcleo familiar\"; \"Construindo a si próprio\"; \"Aliando-se à passividade frente a incapacidade de decisões\"; \"Percebendo comportamentos nos pais e em si próprio\" e \"Vivenciando a depressão\". Conclusões: o estudo permitiu identificar um modelo teórico que simbolizou a forma como as vivências foram compreendidas pelos próprios sujeitos e como o significado de cada experiência foi se entrelaçando na composição do ser, moldando seu conjunto de símbolos, sendo expresso em sentimentos, percepções e comportamentos. O modelo teórico contribuiu para a compreensão dos significados construídos e as condições que afetam o indivíduo desde a infância traumática até a depressão na idade adulta / Human development, present since the primary formation of the individual, consists of all the lived experiences during childhood, including the early life stress experiences. Such experiences have repercussions on the subject actions, and may be important in the depression onset. Objectives: To explore and to analyze the meaning of early life stress in adulthood with depression and to construct a theoretical model about the phenomenon; To characterize the sample regarding sociodemographic and health characteristics; to explore and to analyze, in the according to Symbolic Interactionism, the meaning of early life stress among adults with depression. Method: Qualitative study that had as a guiding theoretical referential the Symbolic Interactionism and Grounded Theory as a methodological referential. The study participants were depressive individuals who experienced early life stress, recruited at the Center for Psychosocial Care - CAPS III in inner city of São Paulo, Brazil. Instruments: Childhood Trauma Questionnaire - CTQ, sociodemographic questionnaire and in-depth interview. The participants number was configured according to the analysis of the emerging theory (theoretical sampling), totaling 12 participants. Results: Data analysis allowed the identification of the theoretical model \"Walking between traumatic childhood and adulthood with depression\". Seven categories structures the experience: \"Experiencing early life stress\"; \"Feeling treatment differentiation within the family nucleus\"; \"Perceiving the distribution of characters within the family\"; \"Building Yourself\"; \"Allying to passivity in the face of inability to make decisions\"; \"Perceiving behaviors in parents and in yorurself\" and \"Experiencing depression\". Conclusions: the study allowed to identify a theoretical model that symbolized the way as the experiences were understood by the individuals and how the meaning of each experience was interlaced in the composition of being, shaping its set of symbols, being expressed in feelings, perceptions and behaviors. The theoretical model contributed to the understanding of the raised meanings and the conditions that affect the individual from traumatic childhood to depression in adulthood

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Ovarian cancer is a malignancy characterized by poor prognosis, high levels of distress, and impaired quality of life (QOL). Investigation into the contributors to QOL is of psychological and prognostic significance in cancer. Contemporary stress theories and empirical accounts identify early life adversity and recent life stress as those sources which exert significant impact on physical and psychological health. To date, life stress research in cancer has yielded few designs which operationalize both indices of early life and recent life stress exposures. Moreover, despite the high-resolution stress data provided by the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (LEDS) system, no studies to date comprehensively operationalize the early life adversity data obtained during each interview. Therefore, the proposed study is the first of its kind to comprehensively obtain ratings and examine effects of early life adversity data collected as part of the LEDS interview. It is also the first to examine independent influences of differentially timed life stress indices on psychological variables important to psychosocial functioning in ovarian cancer. Early life adversity was experienced by 43.1% of the sample. Adversity varied in content, number of occurrences, and severity. Ongoing difficulties, but not recent life events or early life adversity, were significantly associated with pre-surgical depression and QOL. Ongoing difficulties were also associated with lower depression, sleep, and QOL scores at all time-points. Early life adversity was associated with a poorer trajectory of sleep and QOL over the first year post-diagnosis. Findings are discussed with attention to behavioral and biological mechanisms. Applications to generative and cumulative theories of life stress are proposed. These findings lend support to the potential benefit of interventions aimed toward practical support and stress management in patients with ovarian cancer, as well as provide guidelines for use of early life adversity data obtained through the LEDS interview.

The event of a default for low-default portfolios, such as sovereign debt or banks, have received much attention as a result of the increasing instabilities in financial markets. The lack of sufficient default information on low-default portfolios complicates the protection of such portfolios. Default protections have typically, in the past, relied on extreme value theory and reporting the value at risk. The focus here, is the application of an engineering concept, accelerated test techniques, to the problem of insufficient data on low-default portfolios. In the application, high-default portfolios serve as stressed cases of low-default portfolios. Since high-default portfolios have more data available, viewing it as a stressed case of a low-default portfolio enables us to extrapolate the data to the low-default portfolio environment, and do estimation such as estimating the default probability for a low-default portfolio. The flexible framework through which the above is achieved, is provided. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Statistics / MSc / Unrestricted

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It has been often argued that life events have an impact on our physical and psychological well-being. In general, research supports this connection between life events and general health, though some argue that simply experiencing life events has a measurable and predictable impact our health, while others contend that this effect is mediated by the appraisal process. Further, research has identified a number of different factors (hypothetically stratified into pre-existing beliefs, external resources and demands, and behavioral activation and coping strategies) that may influence appraisal and general health. The current study attempts to integrate these findings by testing structural models of the relationship between life events, life stress, and general health while considering the appraisal process and other potential moderators of appraisal and general health. University students (N=204) were tested using 17 assessment measures representing 7 latent constructs of Life Events, Life Stress, Appraisal, General Health, Beliefs, External, and Activation. Results of the measurement models required model respecification to combine Appraisal and Beliefs into one construct and External and Activation into another construct, resulting in a five-factor hypothetical structural model. The resulting empirical structural model is a partially-mediated model that suggests that appraisal and pre-existing beliefs influence the relationship between life events and life stress, and that life events significantly impact measured life stress. The empirical model also indicates that general health is significantly impacted by life stress, as well as behavioral activation and external resources and demands. Practical implications of the findings and recommendations for further research were discussed.

This study investigated whether a relationship exists between levels of marital dedication and student-life stress among married undergraduate students. Student-life stress was examined using the Student-Life Stress Inventory (SLI) (Gadzella, 1991). Student-life stress was compared to levels of marital dedication (low, moderate, high) using the Relationship Scale (Stanley & Markman, 1992). Differences in student-life stress were examined between male and female students. In addition, differences in levels of marital dedication were examined between students and spouses. Levels of marital dedication were compared to a national sample of relatively happy and committed couples. Lastly, spouses ranked categories that have had the greatest impact upon them as spouse of students. Ninety married couples (180 participants) at four universities and one community college in the Southeast participated in the study. No statistically significant difference was found on the Student-life Stress Inventory (SLI) between male and female students. In the highly dedicated category, there was a statistically significant difference in levels of marital dedication between students and spouses. A greater proportion of spouses were more highly dedicated than students. No statistically significant difference in overall levels of marital dedication was found between spouses of male and female students. Male students were as equally dedicated to the national sample of males, whereas female students were less dedicated than the national sample of females. Lastly, male spouses scored higher than female spouses on every category concerning areas that have been most greatly impacted by being a spouse of a student. Though Recreation and Housework were highly ranked categories, the only category showing a significant difference was Sex. Husbands were more severely impacted in the Category of Sex than wives. Although previous research found marital dedication to be higher among females than males, this was not the case for student wives. This may suggest that student wives prioritize their academic studies while they are in school. Male spouses struggle with multiple demands while their wives are in school, calling for more attention to preclude the negative marital effects for male spouses.

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