A Grieving Heart: Does Feeling Burdensome to Others Impact Inflammatory Outcomes During Spousal Bereavement?

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Project Summary/Abstract Bereaved individuals are at an increased risk for morbidity and mortality, particularly within the first 6 months after losing a spouse. Mortality rates are heavily imbalanced by cardiovascular-related deaths, which account for 20-53% of deaths following the loss of a spouse. However, researchers lack an understanding of the psychosocial aspects that may help explain why some bereaved individuals die of a “broken heart”, while others do not. Self-perceived burden (SPB), a psychosocial stressor, refers to a concern for the impact on others of one’s care needs resulting in guilt, distress, feelings of responsibility, and diminished sense of self. Psychosocial stressors promote proinflammatory cytokine production. Inflammation is central to all stages of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and our preliminary data identifies inflammation as a potential mechanism underlying CVD among the bereaved. Further, because SPB is a psychosocial stressor, it may impact bereaved individuals’ CVD risk by promoting systemic inflammation, thereby damaging the heart. Thus, it is important to understand when and if SPB develops during bereavement, and how it impacts CVD risk via inflammation. As part of the overall training plan, the proposed project specifically aims to: (1) assess SPB as a function of grief across 4 time points during the first year of bereavement; (2) assess inflammation as a function of SPB across 4 time points during the first year of bereavement; (3) explore whether SPB partially mediates the relationship between prior grief and subsequent inflammation. Concurrent with an R01 project funded by NHLBI, this project will examine grief symptoms, SPB, and inflammation among a sample of 160 bereaved individuals who recently lost their spouse. These associations will be examined longitudinally, with data collected at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, and 12 months after the spouse’s passing. This project is in line with the applicant’s career goal of pursuing an independent program of research aimed at bridging the fields of social and health psychology using psychoneuroimmunological theory and measurement. Training activities specifically designed to coincide with the proposed project will be accomplished through a combination of formal coursework, mentorship with directed readings, workshops, hands-on training, grant writing, and research activities. The training will take place primarily at Rice University’s Bioscience Research Collaborative (BRC), an innovative space where scientists and educators from Rice University and its neighbors in the Texas Medical Center (TMC) can come together to conduct collaborative research to improve human health through science. Supplemental training, specifically in Psychoneuroimmunology, will take place at the world renown MD Anderson Cancer Center, just steps away from the BRC in the Texas Medical Center.