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First year of widowhood most harmful to mental
health, according to study involving 70,000 women
By Pam Willenz
Eurekalert, September 12, 2003
Resilience of older women and capacity to reestablish
connections can diminish the effects of the loss over time
From
one of the largest prospective and cross-sectional studies conducted on
the health of middle-age women, researchers find that first year widows
have a substantial drop in their mental health but do bounce back after a
period of time, according to a new study appearing in the September issue
of Health Psychology, a journal published by the American Psychological
Association (APA). Women widowed less
than a year reported more mental and physical problems than women who were
married and women who had been widowed for longer than a year, according
to the findings. But the recently widowed women did improve over time and
finding social support may be important in the coping process, according
to lead researcher Sara Wilcox, Ph.D., of the University of South Carolina
and coauthors. The authors examined 72,247 women aged 50-79 years of age
who were either married, recently widowed (lost husband in past year), or
widowed more than a year. They also followed 55,724 women over a
three-year period to examine changes over time. The sample was part
of the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study that investigated the
causes of morbidity and mortality in postmenopausal women. This study was
conducted to determine the affect of losing one's spouse in midlife on
physical health (body weight, blood pressure, physical functioning and
pain), mental health (social functioning and mood) and health behaviors
(smoking, exercise level, intake of fruit, vegetables and fat and alcohol
consumption). The women were followed up three years later. According to the
authors, at baseline marriage was associated with a more favorable health
profile than widowhood, and women who were recent widows (widowed in the
past year) reported substantially higher rates of depressed mood, poorer
social functioning, and lower mental health and physical functioning than
the women who were widowed more than a year. Becoming a widow, said Dr.
Wilcox, is an acute negative experience and does lower a person's mental
health, but this transition was not associated with physical health or
health behaviors, with exception of unintentional weight loss. But as time passed,
the women's mental health improved, said the authors. The women who became
widowed more than one year before the three year follow up reported
improved moods and better social functioning. It may be that those women
with improved mental health measures experienced less stress from not
having to care for an ill spouse or found professional or personal support
and learned some positive coping strategies, said Wilcox. "After a
three-year period of time passed, emotional and social functioning
improved among most of the widowed women," said the authors.
"These findings underscore the resilience of older women and their
capacity to reestablish connections, but point to the need for services
that strengthen social support among women who have difficulty during this
transition." Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
