The Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale (ISLES): Development and Initial Validation of a New Measure

Making meaning out of life stressors has been proposed as a crucial mechanism by which individuals adjust to these experiences. However, an easy-to-use, multidimensional, and well-validated measure of the meaning made after a stressful life event has not been developed and tested. Thus, the present study tested the reliability and validity of scores for a newly developed measure called the Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale (ISLES). In 2 samples of young adults-1 that experienced a variety of stressors (n = 178) and another that experienced a recent bereavement (n = 150)-ISLES scores were shown to have strong internal consistency and, among a sub,sample of participants, also exhibited moderate test-retest reliability. In both samples, support was also found for a 2-factor structure, with I factor assessing one's sense of having some footing in the world following the stressful life event and the other gauging the comprehensibility of the stressor. Convergent validity analyses revealed that ISLES scores are strongly associated with other theoretically related measures and with mental and physical health outcomes, offering support for the potential utility of this measure in research and clinical settings.