People intensely grieving a loved one are nearly twice as likely to die within a decade of their loss, a new study says.
Those whose grief remained persistently high in the first years following a loss have 88% increased odds of dying within 10 years of their loved one's passing, according to results published in Frontiers in Public Health.
They also are nearly three times more likely to receive mental health care like talk therapy, greater than five times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants, and more than twice as likely to receive sedatives or anxiety drugs, results show.
"This is the first study to investigate the long-term use of health care and patterns of mortality over a decade after bereavement in a large-scale cohort," lead researcher Mette Kjaergaard Nielsen said in a news release. She's a postdoctoral researcher at the Research Unit for General Practice in Aarhus, Denmark.
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