Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly

Abstract

BackgroundThe negative impacts of spousal bereavement on the emotional health of the elderly (e.g., depression and anxiety) have been revealed. However, whether widowhood impairs emotional cognition among the elderly is less known. The purpose of this study is to reveal the emotional cognitive deficits among the widowed elderly.MethodsIn this study, we recruited 44 widowed elderly (WE) and 44 elder couples (non-widowed elderly, NWE) and examined their emotional cognition including attention and visual working memory, which were measured by the visual search task and delayed-match-to-sample task, respectively. Three kinds of emotional faces (i.e., sad, angry, and happy) were adopted as the attentional or mnemonic targets.ResultsIt revealed that WE had a general deficit in search efficiency across emotional types, while they showed mnemonic deficits in negative faces but not positive faces. Furthermore, the modeling analysis revealed that the level of depression or state anxiety of the elderly moderated the effects of widowhood on the deficits of mnemonic processing, i.e., the deficits were only evident among WE with the high level of depression or state anxiety.ConclusionThese findings reveal the attentional deficits in sad, angry, and happy faces and the mnemonic deficits in sad and angry faces among elderly who suffer from widowhood and point out the important role of emotional problems such as depression and state anxiety in modulating these emotional cognitive deficits.

The Impacts of Spirituality and Religious Participation on the Emotional Well-Being of Widowed Older Adults in Southeast Nigeria

“…These findings are in tandem with some studies that revealed that German and Korean widowed older adults experience anxiety, grief, depression, emotional loneliness, and social loneliness ( Förster et al, 2019 ; Kim et al, 2018 ). In China, spousal deaths occasioned some emotional challenges like depression and anxiety ( Bi et al, 2022 ; Tian & Chen, 2022 ). Similar findings have been obtained in other studies across various climes ( Battle, 2013 ; Brouwer et al, 2022 ; Domingue et al, 2021 ; Singham et al, 2021 ; Szabó et al, 2020 ).…”

“…The experience of depressive disorders is prevalent in between 17% and 20% of widowed individuals ( Kristiansen et al, 2019b ). Among the Chinese, spousal deaths occasioned depression ( Bi et al, 2022 ; Tian & Chen, 2022 ) and anxiety ( Bi et al, 2022 ). Spousal deaths result in increased stress among Indians due to poor emotional and financial support ( Ansari et al, 2023 ; Srivastava et al, 2021 ).…”

Acceptance Death as Part of Life: Spouse in Malaysia

“…In a study by [10], depression occurs over a long period of up to four years. Depression also affects health problems among the elderly [5]. The high risk of depression after the death of a spouse is due to the factor of living alone [11].…”

Health of Widowed Elderly and Related Factors in China

“…With the rapid development of an aging population, the health problems of the widowed elderly had attracted the attention of the international community. Widowhood not only means losing a spouse, but also has negative impacts on health [26] and emotional cognition [27]. There is considerable consistency in the study of widowhood, the widowed elderly have lower morale and a higher incidence of mental problems when compared with the married elderly [28].…”