Negative life events were measured using items from the life events for adolescents scale (Coddington 1984). Twelve items assessed whether or not a series of negative dependent-life-events had happened to respondents in the previous year (see Rowe et al. 2006). Examples include “suspension from school” and “being sent away from home”. Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was 0.59 (range 0–9).
