IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v75y2020i8p1772-1782..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A National Longitudinal Study of Partnered Sex, Relationship Quality, and Mental Health Among Older Adults

Author

Listed:
  • Yan Zhang Student
  • Hui Liu
  • Deborah Carr

Abstract

ObjectivesWe worked from a life course perspective to examine the relationship between partnered sex and older adults’ trajectories of mental health as well as the potential mediating role of relationship quality in this association.MethodWe analyzed nationally representative data from three waves of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (2005/2006 to 2015/2016). The sample included 1,911 married and cohabiting respondents aged 57 to 85 at the baseline survey. We examined four factors related to partnered sex: being sexually active, sexual frequency, feeling okay with sexual frequency, and sexual quality. Mental health was measured by self-rated poor mental health, unhappiness, and psychological distress. The relationship quality measures considered both relationship support and relationship strain.ResultsResults from mixed-effects models suggest that being sexually active, having sex more frequently, feeling okay with sexual frequency, and reporting better sexual quality were all related to better mental health outcomes. Relationship quality partially explained the effects of sex on mental health.DiscussionThis study highlights the importance of sex for mental health and relationship quality among older adults. The findings have implications for health policy and programs that seek to promote healthy aging.

Suggested Citation

  • Yan Zhang Student & Hui Liu & Deborah Carr, 2020. "A National Longitudinal Study of Partnered Sex, Relationship Quality, and Mental Health Among Older Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(8), pages 1772-1782.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:8:p:1772-1782.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbz074
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:8:p:1772-1782.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.