'Is anybody listening?' The experiences of widowhood for older Australian women

This paper discusses preliminary findings from participants in the baseline survey of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (Women's Hea lth Australia: WHA) who reported their marital status as widowed. A total o f 12624 women, aged 70-75 years, completed a self-administered 260-item que stionnaire, and 4335 of these women were widowed. Many of these women provi ded additional qualitative comments about their health, social and financia l circumstances after the death of their spouse. This paper presents a them atic analysis of the qualitative comments and builds on the findings of the quantitative analysis of baseline data. The aims of this part of the study are to examine the short- and long-term effects of widowhood on the health and wellbeing of older women and to explore the process of change they exp erience after the death of a spouse. Preliminary findings suggest that, as a key life event, widowhood has an initial negative impact on the health an d wellbeing of older women, but in the long term it may be accompanied by a positive shift into a new life phase.