Older, Abused Women Suffer Poor Mental Health

Not surprisingly, a new study finds that older women who are exposed to physical and verbal abuse have poor mental health.

But an unexpected twist did show up in the results, study author Charles P. Mouton, MD, says, in that verbal abuse alone was more damaging than physical abuse alone.

"The physical abuse may be perceived as minor or something they lived with their whole life," says Mouton, chair of community and family medicine at Howard University in Washington, D.C. The study is published in the Annals of Family Medicine.

Mouton and his coresearchers analyzed data on nearly 94,000 women, aged 50 to 79, who had participated in the large Women's Health Initiative study.

Women who had been abused either physically or verbally over a three-year period had lower scores for mental health, a greater number of depressive symptoms, more social strain, and less optimism about life than did women who weren't abused.

While the effects of abuse on younger women have been studied by many researchers, Mouton says the latest study is one of the first to look at older women.

"When I first set up the study, I anticipated the bigger effect for physical and psychological outcomes would have both been driven by exposure to physical abuse," he says.

"But we found verbal abuse had a significant impact," he says. "The group who had verbal abuse-only reported more depressive symptoms than the group that had physical abuse-only. The group who reported the most depressive symptoms had both physical and verbal abuse."

This suggests that the effects of any kind of abuse are wide-ranging, affecting mental health and happiness. "They are less optimistic about their lives," he says. "They have poorer overall mental health, and they have an increase in depressive symptoms. Their quality of life declines at a time when we like to think they are enjoying their golden years."

Source: Brigham and Women's Hospital