ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences2022
Social Isolation, Social Support, and Loneliness Profiles Before and After Spousal Death and the Buffering Role of Financial Resources.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Development of loneliness and social isolation after spousal loss: A systematic review of longitudinal studies on widowhood.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Pooled it
- How to tackle inequities in bereavement support for ethnically diverse communities: a national qualitative study using experience-based co-design.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Socioeconomic inequalities in quality of life among older adults in northwestern Iran: a cross-sectional study.BMC geriatrics · 2026Article
- Advancing women's mental health: Recommendations from a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Between vulnerability and agency: inner dilemmas and adaptive self-reinvention among widowed older adults living alone in Southwestern China.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Cognitive impairment among widowed older adults in India: a decomposition analysis of gender gap.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- An Analysis of Differences in Successful Aging, Loneliness, and Depression According to Marital Status Among Older Golf Participants.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Loneliness, Aloneness, and Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet in Southern Italian Individuals.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Burden and associated factors of depressive symptoms among older adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus in rural southeast Nigeria: a community-based cross-sectional study.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- A qualitative exploration of gender-based violence throughout the migration journey among refugee women in Nairobi, Kenya.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Widowhood mortality among married and cohabiting partners: a nationwide study in Finland.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Trajectories of loneliness in later life - Evidence from a 10-year English panel study.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- Gender differences in the association between community care and quality of life among older adults in China.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The mediating effects of sleep quality in the relationship between loneliness and depression among middle-aged and older adults.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Changes in Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Social Support: A Gender-Disaggregated Analysis of Their Associations With Dementia and Cognitive Decline in Older Adults.International journal of geriatric psychiatry · 2025Article
- Loneliness After Bereavement: The Role of Survivor Gender and Caregiving Involvement.Innovation in aging · 2025Article
- Latent profiles of youth social support: a study on variations and their impact on self-esteem.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Symptoms (DASS-21) in Elderly Women in Association with Health Status (SHSQ-25): A Cross-Sectional Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Pre-widowhood social support is linked to loneliness patterns: a growth mixture model using the health and retirement study.Aging & mental health · 2024Article
- Co-residence with children as a mediator between widowhood and loneliness in older adults.BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesWe provide new evidence on the profiles of social isolation, social support, and loneliness before and after spousal death for older widows. We also examine the moderating effects of gender and financial resources on changes in social health before and after widowhood.
methodsWe use 19 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, including 749 widowed individuals and a comparison group of around 8,000 married individuals. We apply coarsened exact matching weights and control for age and time trends. Local polynomial smoothed plots show the profiles of social health from 3 years pre- to 3 years postspousal death. All analyses were stratified by gender.
resultsSpousal death was strongly associated with increased loneliness for women and men, but also an increase in interactions with friends and family not living with the bereaved. For men, financial resources (both income and asset wealth) provided some protection against loneliness. Spousal death was not associated with changes in social support or participation in community activities. DISCUSSION: We demonstrate that loneliness is a greater challenge of widowhood than social isolation or a lack of social support. Our findings suggest that interventions focusing only on increasing social interactions are unlikely to alleviate loneliness following spousal death. Moreover, policies that reduce the cost of formal social participation may have limited effectiveness in tackling loneliness, particularly for women. Alternative strategies, such as helping the bereaved form a new sense of identity and screening for loneliness around widowhood by health care workers, could be beneficial.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.