Physical symptoms, sleep problems and resilience in the elderly with and without the experience of spouse death

Spousal death is one of the stressors of the elderly period that is accompanied by many physical and psychological problems. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to compare the physical symptoms, sleep problems and resilience in elderlies with and without spousal death experience. The research method of the current study was causal-comparison. 66 elderlies with spousal death experience in Malayer city participated in research by snowball sampling method. also, 66 elderlies without spousal death experience matched by elderlies with spousal death experience in age and gender. Hagiwara Physical Symptoms Scale, Kubota et al Sleep Problems Inventory of and Brief Connor-Davidson resilience scale Scale of Resilience of were used for collecting the data. Data were analyzed by Two-Way Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA). Results indicated that the mean of physical symptoms and sleep problems in elderlies with spousal death experience ware higher than elderlies without spousal death experience and resilience in elderlies without spousal death experience was higher than elderlies with spousal death experience. The effect of gender wasn’t significant. But, the interaction effect of spousal death and gender on sleep problems was significant. This means that the mean of physical symptoms & sleep problems in men elderlies with spousal death experience was higher than women and sleep problems in women without spousal death experience were higher than men. According to results, using the psychological strategies and therapies for decreasing the physical and psychological problems were suggested for elderlies with spousal death experience.