Does differential social support cause sex differences in bereavement outcome?
✍ Scribed by Wolfgang Stroebe; Margaret S. Stroebe; Georgios Abakoumkin
- Book ID
- 101284793
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 114 KB
- Volume
- 9
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1052-9284
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
A study of a sample of bereaved and married individuals tested the prediction from stress theory that sex dierences in bereavement outcome are due to dierences in social support extended to the bereaved. Previous research had established that compared to same-sex married controls, widowers suer greater health deterioration following the death of a spouse than widows. Although there is some evidence that widows receive more social support than widowers, it has never been tested empirically whether dierential social support is responsible for the sex dierence in bereavement outcome. Two sets of tests were conducted to examine these hypotheses: ®rst, sex dierences in bereavement outcome and in the social support perceived by the bereaved were assessed by means of sex  marital status ANOVAs on depressive symptomatology, loneliness and social support; second, an ANCOVA was used to assess whether the marital status  sex interaction on distress was substantially reduced or eliminated when social support was used as a covariate. Although there was evidence of the expected sex dierences in bereavement outcome and social support, there was no evidence that social support mediates the sex dierences in bereavement outcome.