Grief Symptoms Promote Inflammation During Acute Stress Among Bereaved Spouses
Abstract
The death of a spouse is associated with maladaptive immune alterations; grief severity may exacerbate this link. We investigated whether high grief symptoms were associated with an amplified inflammatory response to subsequent stress among 111 recently bereaved older adults. Participants completed a standardized psychological stressor and underwent a blood draw before, 45 min after, and 2 hr after the stressor. Those experiencing high grief symptoms (i.e., scoring > 25 on the Inventory of Complicated Grief) experienced a 45% increase in interleukin-6 (IL-6; a proinflammatory cytokine) per hour, whereas those experiencing low grief symptoms demonstrated a 26% increase. In other words, high grief was related to a 19% increase in IL-6 per hour relative to low grief. The grief levels of recently bereaved people were associated with the rate of change in IL-6 following a subsequent stressor, above and beyond depressive symptoms. This is the first study to demonstrate that high grief symptoms promote inflammation following acute stress.
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Open practices
Data and materials for this study have not been made publicly available, and the design and analysis plans were not preregistered.
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Action Editor: Karen Rodrigue
Editor: Patricia J. Bauer
Author Contributions
C. P. Fagundes and C. Heijnen developed the parent study concept and study design; C. P. Fagundes oversaw all aspects of data collection and manuscript preparation. J. Liu performed immune assays for the parent study, which includes the data presented here. R. L. Brown began the investigation for this specific article and analyzed and interpreted the data under the supervision of C. P. Fagundes and R. Suchting. R. L. Brown and A. S. LeRoy drafted the manuscript, and M. A. Chen, L. M. Jaremka, and C. P. Fagundes provided critical revisions. All authors approved the final manuscript for submission.
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Article first published online: June 8, 2022
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