The mental well-being of individuals has been studied for centuries. Yet a full understanding of the causal mechanism of mental distress has not been achieved. The prevalence of depression in women has spurred much of the research in this area. The goal of this dissertation is to contribute to the understanding of the determinants of women's mental and physical functioning. The means to this end is to incorporate a concept from each of the following disciplines, sociology and psychology. The sociological discipline lends the stress model to this research, while psychology contributes the concept of worry. To date, sociologists have not studied the effects of worries on women's mental health, while psychologists have not included socio-demographic indicators and stress variables in their studies of worry. The purposes of this dissertation are to add worry to the Traditional Stress Model, explore the determinants of worry, and observe the consequences of worry on mental distress and physical functioning. / A community sample of 170 mothers is employed to test the hypothesis that adding worry to the Traditional Stress Model, while controlling for socio-demographic indicators, stress, social support, and coping measures, will significantly increase the explanatory power when predicting the Total Mood Disturbance Score (TMDS) and the Total Physical Health Score (TPHS). Results from a series of multiple regressions indicate that worry measures do significantly contribute to the understanding of the TMDS and TPHS. / Other conclusions are also reached regarding several determinants of women's mental and physical functioning included throughout the analyses. In the case of married women, a measure of their marital status is a better indicator of their TMDS and TPHS than a measure of their social support from friends and family. In the case of employed women, the most significant indicator for both the TMDS and TPHS is their level of employment stress. / Research and policy implications emerge from these results. For example, general practitioners should be trained to detect employment or marital stress, and poor mood states which are likely to affect their patients' perceptions of their mental and physical health.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.34964 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Gagné, Marie-Anik. |
| Contributors | Smith, Michael (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Sociology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001641381, proquestno: NQ44434, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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