Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Widowhood And The End Of Spousal Caregiving: Wear And Tear Or Relief?, Jennifer Reid Keene, Anastasia H. Prokos

Sociology Faculty Research

This paper analyses the impact of spousal care-giving on survivors’ depressive symptoms six months into widowhood, and examines the applicability of a ‘ relief model’ of spousal adjustment during bereavement. We examine several aspects of the care-giving situation, including care-giver stress, care-giving demands, and type and duration of care and how these affect survivors’ depressive symptomatology. The sample is drawn from two waves of the Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) survey, which was conducted in the United States in the Detroit Metropolitan Area, Michigan. The first wave of data was collected from couples and the second from the surviving …