ABSTRACT
The aetiology of anxiety states and depression are clearly multifactorial. Few would dispute that both immediate life situations and long-term vulnerability factors are significant, but their relative importance is not established. If long-term factors turn out to be overwhelmingly important, then treatment strategies and research on treatment should be focused on identifying and countering these factors, perhaps by preventative measures at the community level. Introductions to structural equation modelling are given by Long, Rogosa, Schooler and Everitt, among others. Two of the three models give a reasonable representation of the data, and allow the variance in neurotic illness to be partitioned into long-term and short-term components. Both the vulnerability and the mixed model provide estimates of the extent to which the aetiology of neurotic illness should be attributed to long-term factors.
