Abstract
Introduction: It has been considered that widowed persons have a higher risk of death. This study intends to explore whether social participation can improve this trend.
Methods: A longitudinal study database was conducted to explore the trend of survival and its change with social participation in the widowed persons. The Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging (TLSA), based on four consecutive waves of longitudinal follow-up data in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 was linked with the National Death Registry from 1999 through 2012. Results: Totally, there were 1,417 widowed persons and 4,500 non-widowed persons included in this study excluding divorced and never-married people. The survival trend analysis was carried out, with social participation as the main predictive factor stratified for comparative analysis. Our results showed that the widowed are older than the non-widowed, are female-dominant, have a lower education level, being more economically stressed and are less likely to have regular exercise, and thus show generally poorer health ,for example, being more vulnerable to have chronic diseases, disability with Activities of Daily Living(ADL), cognitive impairment with Short Portable Mental State Questionnaire (SPMSQ) and depression with The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D). The death risk of the widowed is significantly higher than that of the non-widowed, but the death trend for those with social participation is significantly lower than that of their counterparts in both the widowed and non-widowed. After matching with gender and age for widowed persons, the widowed with social participation have a significantly lower risk of death.
Conclusions: It is concluded that social participation can improve the death risk for the widowed, and it is worthily included in health promotion plans and social welfare services for widowed persons.
Keywords: Social participation, survival, mortality, widowed persons
Comments
It is a comprehensive study with pragmatic approach to widowed persons.
Our gratitude, and look forward to meeting and discussing with you on site.
Dr. Yu-Han Hsiao, PhD, MHA and Prof. Meng-Chih Lee, MD, PhD. MPH
The Institute of Population Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes (NHRI), Taiwan
The Taichung Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan and College of Management, Chaoyang University of Technology, Taiwan