WASHINGTON, D.C.---Losing a spouse is one of the most stressful
events a person can experience. But most older adults are resilient
and bounce back to earlier levels of physical and psychological
health within 18 months of their loss, according to new research on
bereavement from the University of Michigan Institute for Social
Research (ISR), the world's largest academic survey and research
organization.
The research also calls into question the widespread belief that
the sudden death of a spouse is more difficult for the surviving
member of the couple than a long-anticipated death, finding that
for older men, especially, the sudden death of their wives is
actually easier to handle psychologically than a lingering
illness.
Moreover, the new findings debunk a longstanding doctrine of
psychologists and bereavement counselors---that the more conflicted
and unhappy the marital relationship, the more a guilt-ridden
surviving spouse is likely to grieve. Instead, the research
confirms the common sense view that the closer a marital
relationship was, the more depressed the surviving spouse is likely
to be.
The research, some of which is being presented here March 31 at the
annual meeting of the Population Association of America, is part of
an ongoing analysis of data from the ISR Changing Lives of Older
Couples study, a prospective survey of a random community-based
sample of 1,532 married men and women age 65 and older, started in
1987. Other findings from the study will be published later this
year in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences. The analysis
is funded by the National Institute on Aging.
Over the years, the researchers monitored the deaths of
participants, and followed up with interviews of the surviving as
spouses at six months, 18 months, and four years after their
losses. They also re-interviewed members of married couples in the
study who had not yet lost their spouses, then matched these
still-married elders with the widows and widowers on key
demographic variables, including income, education, and health. In
addition to detailed information on each person's physical and
mental health, collected both before and after a spouse's death,
the study contains information on the quality of their marital
relationships.
"Collecting data before the spouse dies allows us to avoid both
positive and negative recall bias," sociologist Deborah Carr
explains. "Some people just can't say anything negative about a
spouse who's dead. 'Oh, he didn't drink a drop.' 'He was a saint.'
Other people get so depressed, their current mood colors their
assessment of the quality of their marriage. They remember things
being a lot worse than they really were."
Carr found that the closer the marital relationship, the more
depressed both men and women were likely to be after their spouse
died. She also found that surviving spouses who were better off
economically, as measured by home ownership, were likely to be more
depressed than peers who lived in apartments or retirement
communities. "Those who own a home may do worse because they have
the added strain of caring for a house," Carr speculates. "They may
be more socially isolated, lonely, and even afraid of living in a
home alone, compared to surviving spouses who live in apartments
and have neighbors close by."
In addition, she found that widows who were highly dependent on
their husbands for male-stereotyped tasks such as financial
management and home repairs were at higher risk for anxiety as
widows. "These findings suggest a changing picture for bereavement
among older couples," Carr notes, "as more egalitarian divisions of
labor make women less dependent on their husbands for home repair
and financial management, and as couples are more likely to
dissolve dissatisfying marriages and remain in unions with higher
levels of marital satisfaction."
Carr also examined whether forewarning of a spouse's death affected
the survivors' risk of heart disease and psychological adjustment
at six and 18 months after the loss. Overall, she found that
roughly one-third of widowed persons experienced no forewarning of
their spouse's death, while another third reported more than six
months forewarning. The average warning time was five to six
months.
In the analysis, Carr controlled for the widow's physical and
psychological health before the spouse's death, how long the
survivor knew the spouse was going to die, whether the respondent
was providing care to the dying spouse, and whether the dying
spouse was in a nursing home. She also compared how the widows and
widowers fared compared to matched controls who had not lost their
spouses.
She found that prolonged forewarning (more than six months)
significantly increased the likelihood that men reported having
heart problems six months after their spouse's death. But by 18
months after their wives' deaths, the men's health, as measured by
heart problems, had rebounded to previous levels.
Carr also found that sudden death was more emotionally distressing
to women than to men. "Men cope best if their wives' deaths are
quick and unexpected," she says, "while women cope best if their
husband's deaths come after some period of warning. I think it's
because, for this cohort anyway---the parents of the baby
boomers---women are used to the role of care-givers and don't find
it stressful. But men do."
Carr also notes that men and women often have very different types
of personal relationships. "Women may have friends to turn to for
support during the long and drawn-out process of widowhood," she
says, "whereas men may withdraw from others and seek closeness only
from their dying wives."
The findings, she notes, have implications for both professionals
working with bereaved older men and women and for concerned family
and friends. "It's important to realize that a sudden death is not
necessarily more difficult for older men and women to handle than a
death that comes slowly," Carr says. "But it's also important to
realize that as stressful as the death of a spouse is, most older
women and men can and do recover from it, emotionally and
physically."
Carr's collaborators include U-M researchers James S. House,
Randolph M. Nesse, Camille Wortman, and John Sonnega, all at the
U-M Institute for Social Research, and Harvard University
researcher Ronald C. Kessler.
---The University of Michigan