The Life Events Inventory (LEI) - Elaboration and Testing of a New Standard for the Child Population

Overview

Objective:
To evaluate the usefulness of the LEI standard in the Slovak child population age 11 - 13 years.Method: In eight elementary schools in Košice for recording of positive and negative life events the 28-item Life Events Inventory (LEI) was used prepared in Slovakia. The mental well-being was evaluated by means of: the self-reported General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), Rosenberg’s Self-esteem Scale (SE) and the Affect Balance Scale (ABS).Results: The standard was evaluated by assessment of the reliability and validity. The reliability of the inventory was assessed by determining Cronbach’s alpha separately for positive items (LEI-p) and negative events (LEI-n). Cronbach’s alpha for positive items was 0.536 and for negative items 0.563. The convergent construct validity of the inventory was tested by correlations LEI-p and LEI-n with different standards of mental well-being. The Positive Life Events Inventory (LEI-p) correlated negatively with standard GHQ-12 and positively with SE and ABS. The Negative Life Events Inventory (LEI-n) correlated positively with standard GHQ-12 and negatively with standards SE and ABS. All correlations were statistically significant (p

Key words:
children, life events inventory, reliability, validity, psychosomatic disease