Psychological distress in spouses of somatically Ill: longitudinal findings from The Nord-TrØndelag Health Study (HUNT)

Borren, Ingrid; Tambs, Kristian; Gustavson, Kristin; Sundet, Jon Martin

doi:10.1186/s12955-014-0139-7

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Although it may be considered natural to assist one’s ailing spouse, providing care affects the caregiving partner in different ways. Limited time for own interests [12], negative effects on social life [13, 14], reduced quality of life [15] and experience of psychological distress [16, 17], are some consequences described in the literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Living with a spouse with chronic illness – the challenge of balancing demands and resources

et al. 2019

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Background The number of partners providing informal care for their chronically ill spouse is rising, and they describe their daily life as demanding. The aim of this paper was to describe the partners’ experiences of living with a person with chronic illness and how they manage everyday life. Methods A descriptive design with a qualitative approach was used. A purposive sample of 16 Swedish partners with a chronically ill spouse were interviewed. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results Four main themes were identified: ‘Managing challenges in daily life,’ ‘Seeking support and use own capabilities to manage life,’ ‘Appreciating the good parts of life’ and ‘Adapting to constant changes and an uncertain future’. Their experiences of support from formal care providers varied; they expressed the need for more assistance from the health care sector. Conclusions The partners experienced many challenges in everyday life when providing informal care for their chronically ill spouse. This affected both their physical and psychological health, as they had limited time for themselves. The partners seemed to receive more support from their informal network than from formal care providers. In handling daily life, the partners balanced demands and resources to identify possibilities to move forward and find meaning in life. This is congruent with theories by Antonovsky, and Folkman and Lazarus that describes meaningfulness and how to handle challenges in everyday life.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Living with a spouse with chronic illness – the challenge of balancing demands and resources

et al. 2019

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“…Caregivers of ALS patients are also likely exposed to the loss of the ALS patient due to death from ALS. Individuals with bereavement have been shown to have higher risk of developing future diseases, including cardiovascular disease (2)(3)(4)(5) and psychiatric disorders (6)(7)(8). The mortality of primary caregivers of ALS patients has, to our knowledge, not been studied.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mortality among family members of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – a Swedish register-based study

Kläppe

Longinetti

Larsson

et al. 2021

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration

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Objective: To test two hypotheses: (1) partners of ALS patients have higher mortality due to outcomes related to psychological distress, and (2) parents and siblings of ALS patients have higher mortality due to diseases that co-occur with ALS. Methods: We performed a nationwide, register-based cohort study in Sweden. We included ALS-free partners, biological parents and full siblings (N ¼ 11,704) of ALS patients, as well as ALS-free partners, biological parents and full siblings (N ¼ 14,460,150) of ALS-free individuals, and followed them during 1961-2013. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of overall and cause-specific mortality were derived from Cox regression. Results: Partners of ALS patients, compared to partners of ALS-free individuals, displayed higher mortality due to external causes (HR 2.14; 95% CI 1.35-3.41), including suicide (HR 2.44; 95% CI 1.09-5.44) and accidents (HR 2.09; 95% CI 1.12-3.90), after diagnosis of the ALS patients. Parents of ALS patients had a slightly higher overall mortality (HR 1.03; 95% CI 1.00-1.07), compared with parents of ALS-free individuals. This was driven by mortality due to dementias and cardiovascular, respiratory, and skin diseases. Parents of ALS patients had, however, lower mortality than parents of ALS-free individuals due to neoplasms. Siblings of ALS patients had higher mortality due to dementias, and digestive and skin diseases. Conclusions: Increased mortality due to suicide and accidents among partners of ALS patients is likely attributable to severe psychological distress following the ALS diagnosis. Increased mortality due to dementias among parents and full siblings of ALS patients suggests shared mechanisms between neurodegenerative diseases.

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“…Measuring withinindividual changes in the risk of experiencing negative health outcomes would allow for disentangling the potential effect of bereavement from that of pre-bereavement experiences such as caring for a seriously ill spouse near the end of life. [19][20][21] The present study aimed to overcome some of the limitations of previous work by addressing each of these five issues. We examined the risk of death and adverse health outcomes associated with spousal bereavement among community-dwellers aged 65 years and older by analysing routinely collected administrative and healthcare data with two different epidemiological designs (matched cohort and selfcontrolled cohort crossover) and by applying a variety of methods to assess and mitigate the risk of bias inherent to the observational nature of the study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Measuring within-individual changes in the risk of experiencing negative health outcomes would allow for disentangling the potential effect of bereavement from that of pre-bereavement experiences such as caring for a seriously ill spouse near the end of life. 19–21…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spousal bereavement, mortality and risk of negative health outcomes among older adults: a population-based study

Morin

Wastesson

Fors

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Objective: to examine whether spousal bereavement increases the risk of death and negative health outcomes and among older people.Design: cohort study and self-controlled cohort crossover study Setting: routinely collected administrative and healthcare data with individual-level linkage between several national registries in Sweden.Participants: older persons (≥65 years) living in the community whose spouse died in 2013-2014, individually matched with controls.Main outcome measures: death from any cause (primary outcome), acute cardiovascular events, pneumonia, hip fracture, and intentional self-harm (secondary outcomes). In the cohort study, incidence rate ratios were estimated with conditional fixed-effect Poisson regression models adjusted for potential confounders. In the self-controlled cohort crossover study, relative incidence ratios were estimated over the 12 months before and after spousal loss with unadjusted conditional fixed-effect Poisson regression including a bereavement-by-time interaction.Results: 42 918 bereaved older spouses were included and matched to an equal number of married controls (mean age 78.9 [SD 7.2] years, 68% women). During the first year of follow-up, the risk of death from any cause was 1.66 (95% confidence interval 1.53 to 1.80) times higher for bereaved cases than for married controls, and bereaved cases survived on average 4.2 days shorter than married controls. Bereaved cases also experienced an increased risk of acute cardiovascular events (incidence rate ratio 1.34, 1.24 to 1.44), hip fracture (1.48, 1.30 to 1.68), pneumonia (1.14, 1.04 to 1.25), and selfharm (3.49, 2.11 to 5.76). These associations were strongly time-dependent, increasing sharply immediately after spousal loss and weakening as time elapsed. In the self-controlled cohort crossover study, the relative incidence ratios increased for all four secondary outcomes, starting already during the 6-month period preceding spousal loss. Conclusion:Among older persons, the association between spousal bereavement and the risk of negative health outcomes and mortality is most likely causal. Our finding that the risk of adverse health consequences increases already during the 6 months prior to spousal loss indicates that palliative care services have an important role to play in providing timely bereavement care to spouses and other family caregivers.

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Psychological distress in spouses of somatically Ill: longitudinal findings from The Nord-TrØndelag Health Study (HUNT)

Cited by 5 publications

References 53 publications

Living with a spouse with chronic illness – the challenge of balancing demands and resources

Living with a spouse with chronic illness – the challenge of balancing demands and resources

Mortality among family members of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – a Swedish register-based study

Spousal bereavement, mortality and risk of negative health outcomes among older adults: a population-based study

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