The impact of spousal bereavement on hospitalisations: Evidence from the Scottish Longitudinal Study

This paper estimates the impact of spousal bereavement on hospital inpatient use for the surviving bereaved by following the experience of 94,272 married Scottish individuals from 1991 until 2009 using a difference‐in‐difference model. We also consider the sample selection issues related to differen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health economics 2018-02, Vol.27 (2), p.e120-e138
Main Authors: Tseng, Fu‐Min, Petrie, Dennis, Wang, Shaolin, Macduff, Colin, Stephen, Audrey I.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Bereavement
Censuses
difference‐in‐differences
Female
Grief
Health economics
hospitalisation
Hospitalization
Hospitalization - statistics & numerical data
Humans
Length of Stay - statistics & numerical data
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Middle Aged
mortality
Mortality rates
Propensity
Propensity Score
Scotland
spousal bereavement
Spouses - psychology
Studies
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Summary:This paper estimates the impact of spousal bereavement on hospital inpatient use for the surviving bereaved by following the experience of 94,272 married Scottish individuals from 1991 until 2009 using a difference‐in‐difference model. We also consider the sample selection issues related to differences in survival between the bereaved and non‐bereaved using a simple Cox Proportional‐Hazard model. Before conducting these estimations, propensity score approaches are used to re‐weight the non‐bereaved to generate a more random‐like comparison sample for the bereaved. We find that those bereaved who survive are both more likely to be admitted and to stay longer in hospital than a comparable non‐bereaved cohort. Bereavement is estimated to induce on average an extra 0.24 (95% CI [0.15, 0.33]) hospital inpatient days per year. Similar to previous studies, we estimate the bereaved have a 19.2% (95% CI [12.5%, 26.3%]) higher mortality rate than the comparable non‐bereaved cohort.
ISSN:1057-9230
1099-1050
DOI:10.1002/hec.3573