Moderators in the relationship between social contact and psychological distress among widowed adults

Abstract

Objectives: This study examines: (1) the effect of widowed persons’ frequency of contact with friends and relatives on their depressive and grief symptoms six months following spousal loss and (2) the extent to which the effects of social contact are contingent upon the degree of emotional support received from these relationships and the congruence between widowed persons’ preferred and actual levels of social contact.

Method: Analyses are based on the Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) study, a prospective study of a two-stage area probability sample of 1532 married men and women aged 65 or older. Depressive and grief symptoms, six months after spousal loss, were regressed on social contact, support, and congruence between preferred and actual social contact.

Results: Frequency of contact did not have a significant influence on psychological distress when contextual factors are controlled. Social support and the incongruence between preferred and actual social contact were significantly associated with decreased psychological distress for several outcomes. As for the moderating effects of social support and incongruence on the link between social contact and distress, those who had high social contact and high social support experienced less anger and fewer intrusive thoughts than their counterparts; and those who had low social contact but preferred high social contact experienced greater anger.

Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of understanding the quality of widowed persons’ relationships as well as the congruence between their preferred and actual social contact.

Keywords:

• widowhood
• social support
• social isolation
• grief

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America (2004). We would like to thank Deborah Carr and Ruth Dunkle for their helpful comments on our earlier drafts. The CLOC study was supported by the following grants from the National Institute on Aging: AG15948-01, AG610757-01, and AG05561-01. A public-use version of the data is available from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan, or via the website http://www.cloc.isr.umich.edu.