The role of neuroticism and conscientiousness on mortality risk in older adults after child and spouse bereavement

Abstract

Objective: Bereavement effects on mortality risk were investigated in 1150 randomly selected participants, aged 60–104, in the Swedish National Study of Aging and Care.

Method: Cox proportional hazards models, controlling for age, gender, functional ability, the personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness as well as time since the latest loss were used to predict mortality risk.

Results: Having lost a child, spouse or both child and spouse did not predict mortality risk. An indirect link between bereavement and mortality was found showing for each year since loss the mortality risk decreased by about 1%. Neuroticism, but not conscientiousness, was associated with mortality risk, with a small-effect size.

Conclusions: The different bereavements did not predict mortality risk while an indirect link was found showing that mortality risk decreased with time.

Keywords:

• loss/bereavement/life events
• mortality risk
• personality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.