Mental and physical health, morale and social functioning were assessed in a sample of elderly men widowed during the course of a longitudinal study. Measures were taken before these men were widowed, and then re-measured four years later, after they had been widowed. They were compared with a sample of age-matched still-married controls. There were no significant differences as a result of eit...

The paper presents the origins of John Chrysostom's teaching on widowhood. author analyses most important factors that contributed to shaping John’s aimed at widows. first factor was his personal experience, such as relationship with mother or befriended second being under a strong influence St. Paul’s teachings, especially Letter Ephesians and First Corinthians. last consequence John's distinc...

We use data from the first wave of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) to examine the marital histories of this cohort of women and men on the verge of retirement. The legacy of past increases in divorce rates is evident in the complex marital histories of HRS households and the relationship between those histories and current economic status. Couples in a first marriage now make up only one...

PURPOSE This article examines the extent to which positive and negative support from children prior to and after spousal loss and changes in support from pre- to post-loss affect widowed older adults' depressive symptoms, anxiety, and anger 18 months following widowhood. DESIGN AND METHODS Analyses are based on the Changing Lives of Older Couples, a prospective study of 1,532 married individu...

BACKGROUND Major life events are associated with a change in daily routine and could thus also affect habitual levels of physical activity. Major life events remain largely unexplored as determinants of older adults' participation in physical activity and sports. This study focused on two major life events, widowhood and retirement, and asked whether these major life events were associated with...

OBJECTIVES We investigated the effect of spousal bereavement on mortality to document cause-specific bereavement effects by the causes of death of both the predecedent spouse and the bereaved partner. METHODS We obtained data from a nationally representative cohort of 373 189 elderly married couples in the United States who were followed from 1993 to 2002. We used competing risk and Cox model...

OBJECTIVES We assessed whether widowhood is associated with risk of diagnosis with a sexually transmitted infection (STI) among older adults in the United States and whether the associations observed in men differed before and after the introduction of sildenafil, the first oral erectile dysfunction medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration. METHODS We used Cox proportional haza...