A new study from Florida State University's Claude Pepper Center and Pepper Institute on Aging & Public Policy has shed new light on the importance of psychological resilience for aging adults experiencing widowhood, including notable gender differences in recovery.
The three-year project, funded by the National Institute on Aging, delves into the complex interplay between stressful exposures and psychological resilience in later life. Director of FSU's Claude Pepper Center Dawn Carr and FSU Pepper Institute on Aging & Public Policy Director Miles Taylor are co-primary investigators for this project, and FSU Postdoctoral Fellow Shekhar Chauhan serves as first author on a recent study based on this work focusing specifically on widowhood.
"Widowhood is one of the most devastating social events that one can experience in life," Carr said. "It can happen at any life stage, but it's more common in later life. If you're married later in life, you have a 50/50 chance of becoming widowed. The extent to which people prepare for that possibility is crucial."
The research offers valuable perspectives for public health strategies aimed at promoting sustained mental health among widowed individuals and underscores the importance of further investigation into the protective mechanisms of psychological resilience and the development of resilience interventions throughout the lifespan.
The study explored how pre-widowhood psychological resilience (PR), or the ability to adapt and cope with mental and emotional stressors, affects depressive symptom recovery following spousal loss among older men and women. The team concluded that bolstering PR before spousal loss could provide protective effects against long-term depressive symptoms, particularly for women.
"Identifying ways to improve psychological resilience is a big challenge, but it may be crucial in the context of widowhood."
– Shekhar Chauhan, FSU postdoctoral fellow and first author on the recent study
The findings showed that both widowed men and women experience increased depressive symptoms immediately following spousal loss, regardless of their PR levels. However, moderate to high levels of PR in men and high PR in women predict a return to pre-widowhood depressive symptom levels two years later. High PR is also associated with fewer depressive symptoms over time among continuously married individuals.
While PR did not predict the initial increase in depressive symptoms after the loss, it significantly influenced recovery. Women with high levels of PR not only fully recovered but also experienced fewer depressive symptoms after the recovery period than they did before the loss. In contrast, women with lower levels of PR did not fully recover and remained more depressed than they were before the loss. For men, recovery to pre-widowhood levels occurred regardless of their PR levels.
"Identifying ways to improve psychological resilience is a big challenge, but it may be crucial in the context of widowhood," Chauhan said. "If we can identify ways to enhance resilience early in the life course, older adults will be better positioned to tackle adversities like widowhood."
The findings indicate that providing support to older adults during difficult life events may be affected by PR, which serves as an internal resource facilitating adaptation and coping with adversity in ways that enhance health and well-being.
Researchers are also exploring how psychological resilience could affect a variety of health outcomes in later life, with a focus on strategies to support independence as people age while maintaining healthy lifestyle behaviors.
"For instance, we know that higher resilience is associated with a reduced risk of repeated falls," Carr said. "Our goal is to help people figure out what they need to get back up and keep going, combining resilience with other interventions to support healthy aging."
The research comes as Florida State University continues to expand FSU Health, a bold initiative to build a health care ecosystem that will transform health care delivery in North Florida.
The Claude Pepper Center and the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy are part of FSU's College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. To learn more about the Claude Pepper Center, visit claudepeppercenter.fsu.edu. For more about FSU's Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy, visit cosspp.fsu.edu/pepperinstitute.
