Table 2.

Demographics and characteristics of women who appraised events as stressful.^a

Characteristic	Casesb		Controls		cP value
Reference age, years: mean, s.d.	54.5	11.9	55.6	10.6	0.296
BMI: no. (%)
Underweight	10	71.4	3	75.0	0.467
Normal weight	262	80.6	69	72.6	0.094
Overweight	163	84.9	42	77.8	0.215
Obese	95	83.3	42	89.4	0.466
Race/ethnicity: no. (%)
Non-Hispanic White	479	83.5	139	78.1	0.103
Other	51	76.0	19	71.8	0.687
Age at menarche: no. (%)
≤10 years	28	77.8	9	75.0	1
11–13 years	367	83.4	107	77.5	0.117
≥14 years	121	81.8	38	79.2	0.690
Age at first full-term pregnancy: no. (%)
≤24 years	226	84.0	85	81.7	0.595
25–29 years	137	76.1	36	81.8	0.418
≥ 30 years	78	85.7	15	65.2	0.024
Parity: no. (%)
Nulliparous	89	84.8	22	68.8	0.043
Parous	441	81.7	139	79.5	0.501
Number of children: mean., s.d	2.2	1.4	2.1	1.5	0.386
Menopausal status: no. (%)
Pre/peri-menopausal	194	84.4	50	67.6	0.002
Post-menopausal	336	81.0	106	83.5	0.525
Hormone replacement therapy: no. (%)
Never	244	80.8	61	76.3	0.368
Ever	282	83.4	97	80.2	0.416
Family history of breast cancer in first degree relative: no. (%)
No	397	82.2	133	77.3	0.163
Yes	133	82.6	25	80.7	0.793
Education: no. (%)
< College	331	80.7	95	78.5	0.590
Some college or more	197	84.9	62	76.5	0.086
Smoking: no. (%)
Never	261	81.1	85	75.9	0.242
Ever	264	83.3	73	80.2	0.497
Alcohol use in year prior: no. (%)
None	192	81.4	56	81.2	0.971
Any	324	83.7	97	77.0	0.087
Physical activity in previous year: no. (%)
Not active	207	81.5	78	75.7	0.219
Moderately active	172	84.7	46	76.7	0.145
Very active	151	80.3	34	85.0	0.492

(−) Test statistic could not be computed because of insufficient data.

^aAppraised stressful events: had at least one event that was appraised as stressful.

^bTable total values could be discrepant from the total cases and controls since some participants reported only NSLEs.

^cP values were calculated based on χ² statistics unless cell counts were below 5 where fisher’s exact test was used.