The effort that older men use to cope with stressful situations is more effective in terms of longevity than the individual strategies they employ, according to a study published March 19 in the Journals of Gerontology.
Researchers evaluated data from 743 men in the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study from 1993 to 2002. The men were in their late 60s and relatively healthy, the team noted.
The men underwent stress and coping tests that evaluated how they handled the most stressful events that happened to them within the month. The men had to rate the severity of the problem and specify how much they used different strategies to cope with the issue. The team assessed the overall efforts put into coping, and related it to the mens’ risks of dying over the course of a 27-year span.
The team looked at five coping strategies: positive action (managing the problem), social coping (leaning on others for support), spiritual coping (praying or meditating for guidance), negative action (yelling), and escape avoidance (distancing yourself from the problem). Researchers also assessed total coping, or using all of the strategies together.
The team followed up on the men for an average of 16.7 years. During that time, 64% of the men died.
Stressfulness of a problem wasn’t associated with their risk for death, even when the team adjusted for health conditions and demographics. Social coping, which is one type of strategy people used, was linked to a higher mortality risk. The researchers said that social coping may deplete emotional and physical resources instead of giving them a boost — something that could explain the higher risk for death tied to it.
Coping skills may not be so sharp if older adults use a lot of energy to cope, they noted.
“Our findings suggest that if an older adult deviates from this pattern by using a lot of energy to deal with stressors, it may be a sign that they are struggling and do not have what they need to manage the problem at hand,” Victoria Marino, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the school and another author, said. “These findings behoove us to pay more attention to how the aging process may pose challenges to individuals and to signs that older people may need resources to help preserve their health, sense of independence and well-being.”
Total coping effort was associated with 14% greater risk of all-cause mortality regardless of how stressful the problem was, a person’s demographics or their health status.
“How much older men did in response to stressors mattered more for their survival than what they did,” Lewina Lee, PhD, clinical psychologist at the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder at the VA Boston Healthcare System and associate professor of psychiatry at the school, and a senior author, said in a statement. “Our finding held up even after we considered individual differences in demographics, marital status, major health conditions, and lifestyle factors at study baseline.”
