Nine per cent (n = 26) of patients had at least one stressful life event in the 6 months before illness onset, with 72% of these being major stressors and the remainder being minor stressors. The majority of these patients (65%) had one stressor, but 31% had two recorded stressors and 4% had three stressors. The categorization of stressors included network (50%), family (25%), academic (19%) and unknown types (6%). Patients >7.5 years of age had a stressful life event more frequently than younger children (P = 0.003; OR 3.5; 95% CI 1.5, 7.9). There were no differences in the proportion of patients with a reported stressor or in the number or type of stressor in 6 months before illness onset between clinical or autoantibody phenotype, nor by gender, race, disease course or delay to diagnosis.