Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The elderly widowed are likely to have a variety of medical and social needs and may have difficulty in mobilising appropriate services. This study aims to identify the needs of elderly widowed people, to describe the ways in which some needs are met and others are not met and to ascertain ways in which services could minimise problems for elderly widowed people and their supporters. It is concerned with the ways in which, and the extent to which, appropriate services are mobilised, with co-operation, and lack of co-operation, between different services; and with the advantages and disadvantages of specialised or more general types of service. The nature of the services covered is wide. Particular attention is paid to the role of the general practitioner and to the support received from the informal network of relatives and neighbours. For the second edition (March 2016) additional death coded data with further labelling and accompanying documentation were deposited.

Main Topics:

The main topics covered are: death and its emotional effect on people; social support and doctor-patient relationship; health and mental disorders; socio-demographics.

Eight areas (death registration districts) of England were chosen with probability proportional to the number of deaths and taking a random starting point. In each area a random sample of deaths, mostly registered in January 1979, was taken

Face-to-face interview

Postal survey

The widowed and familiars were interviewed orally; general practitioners were surveyed by post