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Anxiety in the second half of life: exploring trajectories and their interrelations with physical illness and stressful life events in a population-based twin sample

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Title	Anxiety in the second half of life: exploring trajectories and their interrelations with physical illness and stressful life events in a population-based twin sample
Author	Lee, Lewina Onyi
Author email	lol@usc.edu;lewina.lee@gmail.com
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy
Document type	Dissertation
Degree program	Psychology
School	College of Letters, Arts And Sciences
Date defended/completed	2011-09-01
Date submitted	2011-10-17
Date approved	2011-10-18
Restricted until	2011-10-18
Date published	2011-10-18
Advisor (committee chair)	Prescott, Carol A. Gatz, Margaret
Advisor (committee member)	Pedersen, Nancy L. Crimmins, Eileen M.
Abstract	There is limited research on late life anxiety despite the higher prevalence of anxiety disorders relative to affective disorders in older adults. This study addresses gaps in the literature by examining: (1) the longitudinal course of anxiety symptoms in older age, and (2) the interrelations of anxiety with physical illness and stressful life events (SLE) in the second half of life. We investigated these associations at both phenotypic and biometric levels. ❧ This study is based on data from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging collected over 6 occasions between 1984 and 1993. Using multilevel regression, biometric latent curve analyses, and latent change score analyses, we analyzed data from 1,576 twins who were at least 50 years old at study inclusion. Anxiety was measured using the State Trait Personality Inventory – State Anxiety subscale. A composite SLE score was created from the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Physical illness was represented by a SUMILL variable that expressed the number of organ systems affected by reported physical illnesses. ❧ In the sample overall, anxiety followed a U-shaped trajectory over age and was characterized by significant individual differences in trajectories. Individual differences in trajectories of anxiety were nearly equally attributable to genetic and unique environmental factors. The amount of variance of anxiety followed a convex trajectory in later life, with greater variance in the middle of the age range than at either end. SLE and physical illness appeared to mediate the U-shaped trajectory of anxiety in later life, such that after adjusting for these covariates there were no clear age-related trends that were common to all participants, but significant individual variation in trajectories. We also found significant between-person differences in the degree of association between anxiety and SLE. There was no evidence of SLE or physical illness acting as a leading indicator of anxiety increases, although there was evidence for correlated trajectories and within-time correlations of anxiety with both SLE and illness. The association of anxiety with SLE was primarily mediated by individual-specific environmental factors, with a small contribution from additive genetic factors.
Keyword	aging; anxiety; stress; genetics; longitudinal analysis; physical illness; stressful life events
Language	English
Part of collection	University of Southern California dissertations and theses
Publisher (of the original version)	University of Southern California
Place of publication (of the original version)	Los Angeles, California
Publisher (of the digital version)	University of Southern California. Libraries
Provenance	Electronically uploaded by the author
Type	texts
Legacy record ID	usctheses-m
Rights	Lee, Lewina Onyi
Access conditions	The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.
Repository name	University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository address	USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA
Repository email	cisadmin@usc.edu
Archival file	uscthesesreloadpub_Volume71/etd-LeeLewinaO-344.pdf