Widowhood in Elderly Women: Exploring its Relationship to Community Integration, Hassles, Stress, Social Support, and Social Support Seeking

Abstract

This study examined the degree to which widows were integrated in their community, the daily hassles and stress they may have experienced, and their social networks and support-seeking behavior. A sample of 160 women, sixty years of age or older, eighty widows and eighty non-widows were interviewed. Half the sample participated in senior centers in Kansas City, Missouri, while the other half belonged to other organizations or were obtained through a truncated snowball technique. The findings indicated that widowhood in and of itself does not appear to be a predictor either of community integration or the lack of it or the experience of stress and hassles. Those who experienced hassles were not the same persons as those who experienced stress. It was surprising to find that those who sought social support did not seem most in need of it. Age and education, along with community integration, were better predictors of the variables studied than was widowhood.