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Sex Differences in Medication and Primary Healthcare Use before and after Spousal Bereavement at Older Ages in Denmark: Nationwide Register Study of over 6000 Bereavements

Background. The study aimed to examine sex differences in healthcare use before and after widowhood to investigate whether reduced healthcare use among widowers compared with widows may partially explain excess mortality and more adverse health outcomes among men than women after spousal loss. Metho...

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Autores principales: Oksuzyan, Anna, Jacobsen, Rune, Glaser, Karen, Tomassini, Cecilia, Vaupel, James W., Christensen, Kaare
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE-Hindawi Access to Research 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3157079/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21860795
http://dx.doi.org/10.4061/2011/678289
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author Oksuzyan, Anna
Jacobsen, Rune
Glaser, Karen
Tomassini, Cecilia
Vaupel, James W.
Christensen, Kaare
author_facet Oksuzyan, Anna
Jacobsen, Rune
Glaser, Karen
Tomassini, Cecilia
Vaupel, James W.
Christensen, Kaare
author_sort Oksuzyan, Anna
collection PubMed
description Background. The study aimed to examine sex differences in healthcare use before and after widowhood to investigate whether reduced healthcare use among widowers compared with widows may partially explain excess mortality and more adverse health outcomes among men than women after spousal loss. Methods. All individuals alive and aged at least 60 years in 1996 and who became widowed in the period from 1996 to 2003 were selected from the 5% sample of the total Danish population and all Danish twins. The healthcare use was assessed as the average daily all-cause and major system-specific medication use and the average annual number of visits to general physicians (GPs). Results. The average daily use of all-cause and major system-specific medications, as well as the number of GP visits increased over the period from 1 year before and up to 5 years after a spouse's death, but there were no sex-specific patterns in the trajectories of medication use and number of GP visits after conjugal loss. Conclusion. We found little support for the hypothesis that reduced healthcare use contributes to the explanation of more adverse health outcomes after conjugal loss in men compared with women in Denmark.
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spelling pubmed-31570792011-08-22 Sex Differences in Medication and Primary Healthcare Use before and after Spousal Bereavement at Older Ages in Denmark: Nationwide Register Study of over 6000 Bereavements Oksuzyan, Anna Jacobsen, Rune Glaser, Karen Tomassini, Cecilia Vaupel, James W. Christensen, Kaare J Aging Res Research Article Background. The study aimed to examine sex differences in healthcare use before and after widowhood to investigate whether reduced healthcare use among widowers compared with widows may partially explain excess mortality and more adverse health outcomes among men than women after spousal loss. Methods. All individuals alive and aged at least 60 years in 1996 and who became widowed in the period from 1996 to 2003 were selected from the 5% sample of the total Danish population and all Danish twins. The healthcare use was assessed as the average daily all-cause and major system-specific medication use and the average annual number of visits to general physicians (GPs). Results. The average daily use of all-cause and major system-specific medications, as well as the number of GP visits increased over the period from 1 year before and up to 5 years after a spouse's death, but there were no sex-specific patterns in the trajectories of medication use and number of GP visits after conjugal loss. Conclusion. We found little support for the hypothesis that reduced healthcare use contributes to the explanation of more adverse health outcomes after conjugal loss in men compared with women in Denmark. SAGE-Hindawi Access to Research 2011 2011-08-10 /pmc/articles/PMC3157079/ /pubmed/21860795 http://dx.doi.org/10.4061/2011/678289 Text en Copyright © 2011 Anna Oksuzyan et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Oksuzyan, Anna
Jacobsen, Rune
Glaser, Karen
Tomassini, Cecilia
Vaupel, James W.
Christensen, Kaare
Sex Differences in Medication and Primary Healthcare Use before and after Spousal Bereavement at Older Ages in Denmark: Nationwide Register Study of over 6000 Bereavements
title Sex Differences in Medication and Primary Healthcare Use before and after Spousal Bereavement at Older Ages in Denmark: Nationwide Register Study of over 6000 Bereavements
title_full Sex Differences in Medication and Primary Healthcare Use before and after Spousal Bereavement at Older Ages in Denmark: Nationwide Register Study of over 6000 Bereavements
title_fullStr Sex Differences in Medication and Primary Healthcare Use before and after Spousal Bereavement at Older Ages in Denmark: Nationwide Register Study of over 6000 Bereavements
title_full_unstemmed Sex Differences in Medication and Primary Healthcare Use before and after Spousal Bereavement at Older Ages in Denmark: Nationwide Register Study of over 6000 Bereavements
title_short Sex Differences in Medication and Primary Healthcare Use before and after Spousal Bereavement at Older Ages in Denmark: Nationwide Register Study of over 6000 Bereavements
title_sort sex differences in medication and primary healthcare use before and after spousal bereavement at older ages in denmark: nationwide register study of over 6000 bereavements
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3157079/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21860795
http://dx.doi.org/10.4061/2011/678289
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