{"doi":"10.1093/aje/kwaf056","title":"Detecting risk for depression and anxiety symptoms among older bereaved women using text-based analysis in the Nurses’ Health Study II","abstract":"We analyzed free-text narratives about recent bereavement experiences from 1997 women aged 55-73 years (M = 65.9, SD = 4.4) enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II to identify associations between text characteristics and postbereavement mental health. We applied covariate-adjusted linear mixed effects models to assess the association between word count and expression of positive vs negative sentiment (emotional valence) in first-person bereavement narratives and standardized Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) total, anxiety, and depression symptom scores over 6 months, stratified by loss of a partner or child vs a close other. Emotional valence was quantified using the Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner (VADER) algorithm. Among women bereaved of a close other, word count was positively associated with log PHQ-4 total (0.06 SD [95% CI, 0.02-0.09]), anxiety (0.05 SD [95% CI, 0.02-0.09]), and depression (0.06 SD [95 % CI, 0.03-0.09]) symptom scores. Negatively scored emotional valence was associated with elevated log PHQ-4 total (-0.05 SD [95% CI, -0.08 to -0.01]), anxiety (-0.04 SD [95% CI, -0.08 to 0.00]), and depression (-0.04 SD [95% CI, -0.07 to -0.01]) symptom scores. Estimated associations among women bereaved of a partner or child were elevated but underpowered. Qualitative approaches in epidemiologic cohorts offer promise in identifying novel characteristics associated with bereavement outcomes among older women.","journal":"American Journal of Epidemiology","year":2025,"id":563016,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.952,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1465851,"name":"Elaine D Jeon","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":862352,"name":"Maleeka Shrestha","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494122,"name":"Shaili C. Jha","orcid":"0000-0002-1208-6839","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":6854,"name":"Jae H. Kang","orcid":"0000-0003-4812-0557","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":104574,"name":"Janet W. Rich‐Edwards","orcid":"0000-0001-5066-8808","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":233720,"name":"Christy A. Denckla","orcid":"0000-0003-4362-203X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1054776,"name":"Alexandra Hillcoat","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":54,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:09.638214Z","pmid":"40083290","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}