Spousal bereavement and its effects on later life physical and cognitive capability: the Tromsø study

Abstract

Spousal bereavement is associated with health declines and increased mortality risk, but its specific impact on physical and cognitive capabili- ties is less studied. A historical cohort study design was applied including married Tromsø study partici- pants (N=5739) aged 50–70 years with baseline self- reported overall health and health-related factors and measured capability (grip strength, finger tapping, digit symbol coding, and short-term recall) at follow- up. Participants had data from Tromsø4 (1994–1995) and Tromsø5 (2001), or Tromsø6 (2007–2008) and Tromsø7 (2015–2016). Propensity score matching, adjusted for baseline confounders (and baseline capa- bility in a subset), was used to investigate whether spousal bereavement was associated with poorer sub- sequent capability. Spousal bereavement occurred for 6.2% on average 3.7 years (SD 2.0) before the capa- bility assessment. There were no significant bereave- ment effects on subsequent grip strength, immediate recall, or finger-tapping speed. Without adjustment for baseline digit symbol coding test performance, there was a negative significant effect on the digit symbol coding test (ATT −1.33; 95% confidence interval −2.57, −0.10), but when baseline digit sym- bol coding test performance was taken into account in a smaller subsample, using the same set of match- ing confounders, there was no longer any association (in the subsample ATT changed from −1.29 (95% CI −3.38, 0.80) to −0.04 (95% CI −1.83, 1.75). The results in our study suggest that spousal bereavement does not have long-term effects on the intrinsic capac- ity components physical or cognition capability to a notable degree.