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The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life

Background: living alone in later life has been linked to psychological distress but less is known about the role of the transition into living alone and the role of social and material resources. Methods: a total of 21,535 person-years of data from 4,587 participants of the British Household Panel...

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Autores principales: Stone, Juliet, Evandrou, Maria, Falkingham, Jane
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3633366/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23470713
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ageing/aft006
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author Stone, Juliet
Evandrou, Maria
Falkingham, Jane
author_facet Stone, Juliet
Evandrou, Maria
Falkingham, Jane
author_sort Stone, Juliet
collection PubMed
description Background: living alone in later life has been linked to psychological distress but less is known about the role of the transition into living alone and the role of social and material resources. Methods: a total of 21,535 person-years of data from 4,587 participants of the British Household Panel Survey aged 65+ are analysed. Participants provide a maximum 6 years' data (t(0)−t(5)), with trajectories of living arrangements classified as: consistently partnered/ with children/alone; transition from partnered to alone/with children to alone. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-12 caseness (score >3) is investigated using multi-level logistic regression, controlling for sex, age, activities of daily living, social and material resources. Results: after a transition from partnered at t(0) to alone at t(1), the odds for GHQ-12 caseness increased substantially, but by t(3) returned to baseline levels. The odds for caseness at t(0) were highest for those changing from living with a child at t(0) to living alone at t(1) but declined following the transition to living alone. None of the covariates explained these associations. Living consistently alone did confer increased odds for caseness. Conclusions: living alone in later life is not in itself a strong risk factor for psychological distress. The effects of transitions to living alone are dependent on the preceding living arrangement and are independent of social and material resources. This advocates a longitudinal approach, allowing identification of respondents' location along trajectories of living arrangements.
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spelling pubmed-36333662013-04-23 The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life Stone, Juliet Evandrou, Maria Falkingham, Jane Age Ageing Research Papers Background: living alone in later life has been linked to psychological distress but less is known about the role of the transition into living alone and the role of social and material resources. Methods: a total of 21,535 person-years of data from 4,587 participants of the British Household Panel Survey aged 65+ are analysed. Participants provide a maximum 6 years' data (t(0)−t(5)), with trajectories of living arrangements classified as: consistently partnered/ with children/alone; transition from partnered to alone/with children to alone. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-12 caseness (score >3) is investigated using multi-level logistic regression, controlling for sex, age, activities of daily living, social and material resources. Results: after a transition from partnered at t(0) to alone at t(1), the odds for GHQ-12 caseness increased substantially, but by t(3) returned to baseline levels. The odds for caseness at t(0) were highest for those changing from living with a child at t(0) to living alone at t(1) but declined following the transition to living alone. None of the covariates explained these associations. Living consistently alone did confer increased odds for caseness. Conclusions: living alone in later life is not in itself a strong risk factor for psychological distress. The effects of transitions to living alone are dependent on the preceding living arrangement and are independent of social and material resources. This advocates a longitudinal approach, allowing identification of respondents' location along trajectories of living arrangements. Oxford University Press 2013-05 2013-03-06 /pmc/articles/PMC3633366/ /pubmed/23470713 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ageing/aft006 Text en © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
spellingShingle Research Papers
Stone, Juliet
Evandrou, Maria
Falkingham, Jane
The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life
title The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life
title_full The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life
title_fullStr The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life
title_full_unstemmed The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life
title_short The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life
title_sort transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life
topic Research Papers
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3633366/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23470713
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ageing/aft006
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