Using cluster analysis to assess the effects of stressful life events: Probing the impact of parental alcoholism on child stress and substance use

✍ Scribed by David R. Pillow; Manuel Barrera Jr.; Laurie Chassin

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 186 KB
• Volume: 26
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0090-4392
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1520-6629(199807)26:4<361::aid-jcop5>3.0.co;2-w

✦ Synopsis

Cluster analysis was used to categorize stressful life events into groups based on the effect (or mediational) pattern linking each event to external criteria defined within an overarching conceptual model. To illustrate the utility of "effect size clustering," we examined the structure of stressful life events that may function to mediate, in part, the relation between parental alcoholism, parental psychopathology, and adolescent substance use. The analyses were conducted by forming clusters based on how each of 29 individual stressors related with 13 other variables considered relevant to the mediational process under investigation, rather than using the inter-item correlation matrix to determine event similarity. Using data on 326 families, four clusters were