This longitudinal research examines physical and mental health and social adjustment patterns of 90 spouses of suicide victims, 78, of men who died from accidental causes, and 84, of homicide victims. The sample, drawn form public death records in Cuyahoga County (metropolitan Cleveland, Ohio) will be accumulated over the course of the study. Interviews will be conducted with widows ages 18 to 62 at 3, 14, and 26 months after their husbands' deaths. Because blacks' adjustment to widowhood has been little studied, and homicides are overrepresented among them, a supplemental sample of 80 black widows ages 18 to 62 whose husbands died from natural or accidental causes will also be collected in order to be able to make comparisons by race. Widowhood is associated with higher morbidity and mortality than being married or single. Unexpected deaths and deaths out of phase in the life cycle have the potential for even greater health disturbance. Although violence is the third most common cause of death in the U.S., there is little systematic data comparing widows' adjustment to deaths from violent or natural causes. The proposed research builds upon an ongoing study of the similarities and differences in adjustment to widowhood and divorce. The adjustment patterns of the violent death widows will be compared to those of natural death widows and divorcees and of married women collected in two earlier studies to address the following issues: (1) how similar or different is the grief of violent death widows compared to that of other widows; (2) what do age and race play in adjustment; (3) is adjustment to a violent death after a troubled marriage more similar to adjustment to divorce than it is to death from other causes; (4) does adjusting to a violent death take longer than recovering from other deaths. Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance and covariance. MANOVA, and regression techniques will be used for data analysis. This project is one of the first to examine adjustment to deaths from all causes for both young and older women and to provide comparative data on health status of the married. The data will provide a clearer basis for knowing whether special health risks are associated across the life course with having a spouse die by violent means.
| Kitson, G C (2000) Adjustment to violent and natural deaths in later and earlier life for black and white widows. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 55:S341-51 |
