Revista de demencia

Abstracto

The Stressful Life Events and Parkinson?s Disease A Case-Control Study in Belgrade, Serbia

Eleonora Dzoljic

A case–control study was conducted in order to investigate the possible link between stressful life events and Parkinson’s disease (PD). A group of 110 consecutive newly diagnosed PD cases treated at the Institute of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Belgrade University, was compared with a control group comprising 220 subjects with degenerative joint disease and some diseases of the digestive tract. The case and control subjects were matched by sex, age (2 years) and place of residence (urban/rural). According to conditional multivariate logistic regression analysis, PD was found to be significantly related to retirement (odds ratio—OR 18.73, 95% confidence interval— 95%CI 1.9–175.4), birth of own child (OR 66.22, 95%CI 8.3–526.3) and air raids (OR 5.66, 95%CI 2.4–13.5). The risk of PD significantly increased with the number of stressful events. The results of the present study support the hypothesis that stress may play a role in the development of PD.