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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life | | Author(s) | Juliet Stone, Maria Evandrou, Jane Falkingham |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 42, no 3, May 2013 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, May 2013 |
| Pages | pp 366-372 |
| Source | www.ageing.oxfordjournals.org |
| Keywords | Living patterns ; Living alone ; Widows ; Widowers ; Life span ; Stress ; Depression ; Longitudinal surveys. |
| Annotation | Living alone in later life has been linked to psychological distress but less is known about the role of the transition to living alone and the role of social and material resources. In the present study 21,535 person-years of data from 4,587 participants of the British Household Panel Survey aged 65 or over were analysed. Participants provided a maximum six years' data, with trajectories of living arrangements classified as: consistently partnered/ with children/alone; transition from partnered to alone/with children to alone. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) data were investigated using multi-level logistic regression, controlling for sex, age, activities of daily living, social and material resources. After a transition from partnered at baseline to alone at time 1, the odds for GHQ-12 caseness increased substantially, but by time 3 returned to baseline levels. The odds for caseness at baseline were highest for those changing from living with a child at baseline to living alone at time 1 but declined following the transition to living alone. None of the covariates explained these associations. Living consistently alone did confer increased odds for caseness. The study concludes that living alone in later life is not in itself a strong risk factor for psychological distress. The effects of transitions to living alone are dependent on the preceding living arrangement and are independent of social and material resources. This advocates a longitudinal approach, allowing identification of respondents' location along trajectories of living arrangements. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-130510211 A |
| Classmark | K7: K8: SP: SPA: BG6: QNH: ENR: 3J |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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