How you can die of broken heart after losing loved one

SUFFERING a broken heart really can prove fatal, say researchers.

A Scots study has found that bereaved spouses are left at higher risk of death after their loss.

A team including experts from Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University discovered that men and women who have lost their partner have almost a 20 per cent higher chance of dying than those who are not bereaved.

They looked at almost 100,000 Scots and followed their progress for an average of seven years after losing a loved one.

They say bereaved people can be ‘more vulnerable’ and experience social isolation which, coupled with ill health, can lead to higher rates of hospitalisation and death.

Those who were bereaved spent up to 4.5 days in hospital a year on average, compared to less than three days for those who were not, the study said.

The research included Scots between 1991 and 2009, with an average age of 59 at the start of the project. Lead author Dr Fu-Min Tseng, of the National Chung Cheng University, in Chiayi, Taiwan, said: ‘Bereavement is an inevitable event that may cause dramatic changes in health, especially within older populations.

‘We find that the bereaved have a 19.2 per cent higher mortality rate than the non-bereaved.

‘The bereaved, while they were alive, were more likely to be admitted to hospital and spend more days in hospital when they were admitted.’

Individuals could experience ‘mental health issues’ if they failed to cope with their bereavement.

He added: ‘Long-term exposure to mental health issues may result in a deterioration of physical health, which leads to hospitalisation if people fail to undertake basic tasks that maintain good health, such as exercise, diet and engagement with healthcare.’ Problems with mental health could ‘complicate their treatment and discharge’.

He said: ‘More hospitalisation days may be related to the bereaved having complex health and social care needs and living alone or having fewer family members available to support them post-hospitalisation.’

Though saying more research was needed, he concluded: ‘The impact of spousal bereavement on mortality and hospital inpatient admission is substantial.’

Although the causes of death of the Scots in the study – published in the journal Health Economics – were varied, previous research has shown the number of people who died of a heart attack or a stroke in the month after a loved-one’s death was double that of those who were not grieving.

Dr Audrey Stephen, of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Robert Gordon University, said: ‘Broken heartedness is an emotive term we would not necessarily use in a research paper, but I think there is a lot here around vulnerability.

‘Widowhood has an effect on people including social isolation, particularly if they are living with long-term conditions, and it can bring people down.

‘People spend decades being part of a couple. All of sudden there’s only one of you left and people find that really challenging.’