Long-Term Psychological and Somatic Consequences of Later Life Parental Bereavement

Abstract

The death of an adult child is purported to precipitate the most distressing and long-lasting of all grief reactions. The empirical literature surrounding such a claim, however, is primarily clinical and anecdotal in nature with relatively arbitrary and small samples. Drawing from a nationally representative sample of adults (Americans' Changing Lives, 1986, 1989), we examine the long-term effects of the death of an adult child longitudinally over two waves of assessment separated by two and one-half years. The bereaved sample comprised seventy-seven parents (78% female) with a mean age of approximately seventy years whose adult child (mean age at time of death was 42 years) had died within the preceding one to ten years. Results indicated that, in comparison with a comparably aged group of non-bereaved parents, the bereaved group experienced higher levels of depression. Additionally, the bereaved group reported slightly higher levels of marital satisfaction and expressed somewhat different sources of life satisfaction and different sources of worry. From Wave 1 to Wave 2 of assessment, health status declined at a more rapid rate for the bereaved than the control and the higher levels of depression for the bereaved did not change. Discussion focuses on the meaning of the death of a child, and an adult child in particular, and the complexity of the associated bereavement process.