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WEDNESDAY, Feb. 7, 2024 (HealthDay Information) — Divorce later in life could be more durable on ladies than on males, based mostly on patterns of antidepressant use in a brand new examine of individuals aged 50 or older.
Each sexes tended to extend their antidepressant use when going by way of a divorce, break-up or the loss of life of a companion, researchers discovered.
However ladies’s use of those medication was larger than males’s, outcomes present.
Antidepressant use elevated by 7% in ladies previous to a divorce and 6% earlier than a break-up, in comparison with 5% and three% for males, researchers discovered.
Inside a yr, antidepressant use went again to regular ranges for males.
It was a unique story for ladies, nonetheless.
Girls’s use tailed off solely barely instantly after the tip of a relationship, after which elevated once more a yr after and onward, outcomes present.
“The larger will increase in [antidepressant] use related to union dissolution amongst ladies in our examine could certainly relate to the truth that the prices of union dissolution on psychological well being fall extra closely on ladies than males,” wrote researchers led by Yaoyue Hu, an affiliate professor with the Chongqing Medical College Faculty of Public Well being in Chongqing, China.
This might have widespread repercussions around the globe, researchers famous.
“Grey divorce” from the age 50 onward is changing into extra frequent in high-income international locations, researchers mentioned. Later-life despair can be comparatively frequent, affecting an estimated 10% to fifteen% of individuals aged 55 and older.
For this examine, researchers tracked antidepressant use amongst practically 229,000 Finnish residents between 1996 and 2018.
All had been aged 50 to 70, and 33% had gone by way of a divorce, 30% a relationship break-up and 37% the loss of life of their companion.
Almost one in 4 (23%) re-partnered inside two to 3 years, and small decreases in antidepressant use had been related to the launch of a brand new long-term relationship, researchers mentioned.
However these decreases had been short-lived, with use of the medication returning to the identical degree and even growing inside two years.
The brand new examine was printed Feb. 6 within the Journal of Epidemiology & Group Well being.
“The smaller declines in [antidepressant] use related to re-partnering in ladies than in males could also be associated to the reasons that marriage advantages males’s psychological well being to a larger extent than ladies’s, and older males are extra probably than ladies to hunt emotional assist from re-partnering,” the researchers mentioned in a journal information launch. “As well as, ladies could take larger tasks to handle interpersonal relationships between the blended households, reminiscent of these with the companion’s kids, which might undermine their psychological well being.”
Extra data
The College of Michigan has extra about despair and divorce.
SOURCE: BMJ, information launch, Feb. 6, 2024
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