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Published on: January 24, 2020
The effect of spousal bereavement on cognitive functioning in a sample of older adults
Christopher B Rosnick1, Brent J Small, Allison M Burton
1Department of Psychology, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL 62234, USA. crosnic@siue.edu
Objective:
This study examined the association between bereavement and cross-sectional differences in cognitive performance in a sample of older adults.
Methods:
Secondary cross-sectional data analysis was conducted on 211 participants from the MacArthur Battery dataset. Participants completed several cognitive tasks 6-months post-loss.
Results:
Hierarchical multiple regression results suggested that bereavement status was not associated with cognitive performance. However, the effect of bereavement on memory (immediate and delayed story recall) performance was moderated by age and gender where the younger participants and men who were bereaved performed worse compared to their non-bereaved counterparts.
Discussion:
Our results support the finding that bereavement is associated with poorer memory performance within certain subgroups (i.e., men and younger participants). We discuss findings in light of theories of stress and cognitive aging.
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