Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Risk factors
By Mayo Clinic staffAlthough researchers don't know exactly what causes adjustment disorders, they do know some of the risk factors involved, or the things that make you more likely to have an adjustment disorder.
Stressful events
One or more stressful life events may put you at risk of developing adjustment disorder. It may involve almost any type of stressful event in your life. Both positive and negative events can cause extreme stress. Some common examples include:
- Being diagnosed with a serious illness
- Problems in school
- Divorce or relationship breakup
- Job loss
- Having a baby
- Financial problems
- Physical assault
- Surviving a disaster
- Retirement
- Death of a loved one
- Going away to school
In some cases, people who face an ongoing stressful situation — such as living in a crime-ridden neighborhood — can reach a breaking point and develop an adjustment disorder.
Your life experiences
If you generally don't cope well with change or you don't have a strong support system, you may be more likely to have an extreme reaction to a stressful event.
Some studies also suggest that your risk of an adjustment disorder is higher if you experienced stress in early childhood. Overprotective or abusive parenting, family disruptions and frequent moves early in life may make you feel like you're unable to control events in your life. When difficulties then arise, you may have trouble coping.
Other risk factors may include:
- Other mental health problems
- Exposure to wars or violence
- Difficult life circumstances
- Adjustment disorders. In: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR. 4th ed. Arlington, Va.: American Psychiatric Association; 2000. http://www.psychiatryonline.com. Accessed Feb. 17, 2009.
- Strain JJ, et al. Adjustment disorders. In: Hales RE, et al., eds. The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry. 5th ed. Arlington, Va.: American Psychiatric Association; 2008. http://www.psychiatryonline.com. Accessed Feb. 17, 2009.
- Adjustment disorders. National Cancer Institute. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/supportivecare/adjustment/Patient/page4. Accessed Feb. 17, 2009.
- Adjustment disorders. In: Sadock BJ, et al. Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry. 8th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2005. http://www.psychiatryonline.com. Accessed Feb. 17, 2009.
- Ahmed SM, et al. Psychosocial influences on health. In: Rakel RE. Rakel: Textbook of Family Medicine. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/1209963843/0/1481/1.html?tocnode=53391787&fromURL=1.html. Accessed Feb. 17, 2009.
- Clarkin JF, et al. The role of psychiatric measures in assessment and treatment. In: Hales RE, et al., eds. The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry. 5th ed. Arlington, Va.: American Psychiatric Association; 2008. http://www.psychiatryonline.com. Accessed Feb. 17, 2009.
- Bray JH, et al. The family's influence on health. In: Rakel RE. Rakel: Textbook of Family Medicine. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/120920914-7/0/1481/25.html?tocnode=53391850&fromURL=25.html#4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-2467-5..50005-1--cesec2_64. Accessed Feb. 17, 2009.
