During the study, researchers gathered data on more than 1,500 men and women at the University of Michigan Health and Retirement study-which has been ongoing since 1998.
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The participants undergo interviews every 2 years regarding health, functioning, medical care and family structure.
Previous research has shown that the chances of survival after major surgery is better among married patients but this is the first study to find that the impact lasted for years after an operation.
The new findings suggest that “marital status is a predictor of survival and functional recovery after cardiac surgery”, the authors, from the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in their study published today (Oct. 28) in the journal JAMA Surgery.
After surgery, 19 per cent of married participants died or developed a new disability, compared to 29 per cent of divorced people and 34 per cent of the widowed participants.
Developing a new disability was classed as losing the ability to perform an activity of daily living independently, such as dressing, walking or eating. People who are married are more likely to bounce back after heart surgery than those who are divorced, separated or widowed, U.S. researchers said yesteday. Although the researchers found a positive correlation, this is not a cause-and-effect relationship.
And he pointed out that those in the never-married group had results similar to the married group, but their numbers were so small that he hesitated to draw any firm conclusions about those patients.
Interestingly the risk for single people was nearly the same as for married, suggesting that people on their own had learned to take care of themselves without the need of help from others.
The researchers can not conclude why this happens, but they speculate married couples enjoy the benefits of support and assistance they receive from their spouses, which is not easily accessible for unmarried people.
The findings are consistent with other research on marital status and health, said Hiu (Cathy) Liu, an associate professor of sociology at Michigan State University, who has researched the topic. This could explain the differences in recovery seen between married and non-married people. A new study suggests this may be the case.
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Marriage is good for the soul. A bad quality of marriage increases exposure to conflict and stress, which would hurt health. Several studies have linked better survival odds after cardiac surgery to marriage, but few researchers have looked at any link between marital status and surgical recovery.
