Professional Support After Partner Loss: Likelihood and Correlates of Help-Seeking Behavior

Intimate partner loss in later life can be one of the most stressful events in adulthood. Individuals who struggle to adapt to the new life conditions may need support from a mental health professional. However, less is known about the likelihood to seek professional help after separation, divorce, or bereavement in later life and associated factors. This study investigated professional help-seeking (PHS) for partner loss after a long-term marriage in separated, divorced, and bereaved individuals and examined the extent to which specific person and event-related variables, as well as depressive symptoms, increase its likelihood. The data were derived from the LIVES “Intimate Partner Loss Study.” The self-administered questionnaires were completed by 388 adults. PHS was higher after separation (57%) and divorce (49%), compared to widowhood (18%). Higher likelihood of PHS was associated with separation and divorce, female gender, having someone to count on, loss unexpectedness, needing more time to overcome the loss, and more depressive symptoms. Informing individuals unlikely to seek help (e.g., males, bereaved, and individuals with no confidant) about PHS benefits may facilitate adaptation to partner loss.

Partner loss and its effect on frailty trajectories: results from the 13-year follow-up Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

BackgroundFrailty is a geriatric syndrome closely linked to a variety of adverse health outcomes. Thus, it is important to identify factors associated with the development of frailty. It was the aim of this study to examine, if, and to what extent partner loss, a highly stressful life event, affects frailty trajectories of community dwelling adults aged 50 or older.MethodsUsing six waves of panel data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we investigated the effect of partner loss on frailty trajectories estimating growth curve models. Our sample included 183 502 observations of 83 494 community-dwelling individuals aged 50 or older from 21 European countries collected between 2004 and 2017. Frailty was measured using the validated sex-specific SHARE-Frailty-Instrument including muscular weakness, unintended weight loss, decrease in walking capacity, low physical activity and exhaustion.ResultsOur sample contained 79 874 participants who lived in a partnership during their entire observational period and 3620 participants who lost their partner during their observational period. Both men (β=0.184 (95% CI: −0.017 to 0.386), p=0.073) and women (β=0.237 (95% CI: 0.106 to 0.369), p<0.001) showed initial effects of partner loss on frailty, but while only women gradually recovered over time (β=−0.023 (95% CI: −0.039 to −0.008), p=0.002), among men, the effect of partner loss persisted (β<0.001 (95% CI: −0.029 to 0.029), p=0.998).ConclusionThis study revealed that partner loss is followed by elevated frailty. However, while women’s frailty tended to recover from partner loss over time, men’s frailty remained elevated. Notable individual differences in the response of frailty trajectories to partner loss suggest the existence of effect modifiers.

LGBT WIDOWHOOD: THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN PARTNER LOSS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING

Death of a partner – one of the most stressful events many people will ever experience – has profound effects on psychological well-being. However, research on widowhood focuses almost exclusively on heterosexual couples, with little known about these studies’ applicability to the LGBT population. Further, the few studies of partner loss among LGBT individuals are qualitative and many focus on gay men. As a result, little is known about the effects of partner loss in this population as a whole or among other sexual minorities, including lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals. Addressing this issue, our study examines the association between partner loss and psychological well-being using data from the 2010 Aging with Pride: National Health, Aging, and Sexuality/Gender Study (NHAS) (n=2,322), the largest nationally representative sample of LGBT middle-aged and older adults. We use OLS regression to examine the association between partner loss and psychological well-being, measured as depressive symptoms, loneliness, and subjective mental health. Results reveal a significant association between partner loss and psychological well-being across all three measures. However, the association is significantly weaker in models controlling for current partner status. In models predicting depressive symptoms and loneliness, partner loss no longer reaches significance, though it remains significant in the model predicting subjective mental health. Results suggest that current partner status more strongly impacts psychological well-being than does partner loss, though further research is needed to identify how, for whom, and under what circumstances the negative effects of partner loss may linger.