Coping with Loss of a Spouse.

• Position: Report - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Losing a spouse is one of the most stressful events a person can experience. Nevertheless, most older adults are resilient and bounce back to earlier levels of physical and psychological health within 18 months of their loss, according to bereavement studies from the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor. The findings call 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. For older men, especially, the sudden death of their wives is actually easier to handle psychologically than a lingering illness.

Moreover, the research debunks 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, it confirms the common-sense view that the closer a marital relationship was, the more depressed the surviving spouse is likely to be.

The research is part of an ongoing analysis of data from the ISR Changing Lives of Older Couples study, a survey of 1,532 married men and women age 65 and older, started in 1987. Over the years, the researchers have monitored the deaths of participants and followed up with interviews of the surviving spouses at six months, 18 months, and four years after their losses. They also reinterviewed 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...