This study aimed to compare schizophrenic patients’ and nurses’ perceptions of the stress felt by patients during hospitalization, and to present baseline data on patient-centered nursing.

The subjects were 66 schizophrenic patients and 80 nurses in 11 psychiatric wards in the Chungcheong and Gwangju area. Data were collected using self-report questionnaires and analyzed by descriptive statistics.

The results showed that the level of the patients’ perceived stress was between mild and moderate level (1.56±.56), whereas the level of the nurses’ estimation of patients’ stress (2.05±.42) was higher than patients’ perception. The level of the nurses’ perception of the patients’ stress was significantly higher than that of the patients’ perceived stress in terms of a life with no future, a sense of alienation from family, infringement of basic needs, and the inconvenience of collective life, and very wide variations were found. And both the patients and the nurses reported unfair human rights violation as the greatest stressor.

Psychiatric nurses should provide patients with individualized stress management strategies that focus on stressors and the level of stress perceived by each patient.

The purpose of this study was to review the literature to improve the understanding of life events of early schizophrenia and identify the related factors using an integrative review.

The key words, ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘life events’ were used to search peer-reviewed evidence through six electronic databases and 11 papers were selected.

The factors related to the life events of the early schizophrenia were as follows 1) social isolation, lack of self-efficacy, lack of coping as antecedents 2) depression as a mediating factor 3) precipitating role of psychotic symptoms as a consequence.

It is difficult to identify the causal relationship between life events and psychotic symptoms because there are methodological limitations and conflicting results. In the future, it will be necessary qualitative research on life events of early schizophrenia and intervention study applying related factors identified in this study.