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The loss of a spouse can be one of the most devastating and challenging events in a person's life. Experiencing a spouse's death is at the top of the list for stressful events on the Holmes and Rahe (1967 ) Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS), which is the most widely used instrument to measure a person's experience of psychological distress (McGrath & Burkhart, 1983 ). Research has demonstrated that SRRS scores are consistently related to subsequent episodes of illness and psychological distress (McGrath & Burkhart, 1983 ). Since the average age of widowed women and men in North America is 75, it is important to understand the stress that widowhood can bring to older adults (Martin-Matthews, 2011 ).
With the increasing life span over the past years, the number of older adults who are widowed has also increased. The 2009 American Community Survey reported widowhood rates for the previous 12 months as 7.8 for women and 3.5 for men per 1,000 women or men age 15 and older (Elliott & Simmons, 2011 ). Approximately 50% of women ages 75 to 84 are widowed (Rusoff, 2011 ). When considering the number of aging Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1961, it is easy to see that the number of widowed people is likely to increase substantially in the next decade. Given the large number of those widowed in the older adult population, along with the significant stress that comes with the loss of a spouse, it is surprising that nursing research has not focused more on the effects of bereavement on the health of the surviving spouse.
Physical and Mental Health
In one study from the Women's Health Initiative, researchers examined whether widowhood was associated with physical and mental health problems in women ages 50 to 79 (Wilcox et al., 2003 ). Findings from the sample of 72,247 participants indicated that widowed women report poorer physical and mental health and generally poorer health behaviors than married women. They also reported more unintentional weight loss during the 3-year period of the study. Recent widows experienced the most significant impairments, but over time they showed increased stability and slight improvements in both physical and mental health. Researchers concluded that becoming...