bereave

BACKGROUND: Adaption to the loss of a loved one due to suicide can be complicated by feelings of guilt, shame, responsibility, rejection, and stigmatization. Therefore people bereaved by suicide have an increased risk for developing complicated grief which is related to negative physical and mental disorders and an increased risk for suicidal behavior. Grief interventions are needed for this vulnerable population. The aim of this systematic review was to provide an overview of the current state of evidence concerning the effectiveness of interventions that focus on grief for people bereaved by suicide...

OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to explore bereaved siblings' positive and negative memories and experiences of their brother's or sister's illness and death. METHOD: In our nationwide Swedish study, 174 of 240 (73%) bereaved siblings participated, and 70% responded to two open-ended statements, which focused on siblings' positive and negative memories and experiences of illness and death. The data were analyzed using systematic text condensation. RESULTS: The bereaved siblings' responses were categorized into four different themes: (1) endurance versus vulnerability, (2) family cohesion versus family conflicts, (3) growth versus stagnation, and (4) professional support versus lack of professional support...

OBJECTIVE: Cancer caregiving burden is known to vary across the survivorship trajectory and has been linked with caregivers' subsequent health impairment. Little is known, however, regarding how risk factors during long-term survivorship relate to vulnerability to caregivers' health during that period. This study examined effects of caregiving status and depressive symptoms on development of physical morbidity by 5 years postdiagnosis. METHOD: Family caregivers (N = 491; Mage = 55...

OBJECTIVE: Experiences of bereavement can be stressful and are frequently complicated by emotional, familial, and financial issues. Some-though not all-caregivers may benefit from bereavement support. While considered standard within palliative care services in Australia, bereavement support is not widely utilized by family caregivers. There is little research focused on the forms of bereavement support desired or required by family caregivers, how such care is viewed, and/or how bereavement support is experienced...

Understanding parents' experience of care is essential to develop high-quality perinatal bereavement services. This study aimed at developing a questionnaire to identify parents' needs and record their experience of care. The patient experience questionnaire was developed by professionals and parents, and piloted in a tertiary maternity unit. Responses were received from 58 parents. Sensitivity and kindness of staff and time spent with their baby were ranked as 'very important' by 95% of parents. Care in these areas largely met their needs (90%), although 5% of respondents stated that partners could have been more involved...

AIM: The Sewol ferry capsizing accident in South Korea's southern coast had resulted in the death of 304 people, and serious bereavement problems of their families. Electroencephalography (EEG) beta frequency is associated with psychiatric symptoms such as insomnia. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between frontal beta power, psychological symptoms, and insomnia in the bereaved families. METHODS: Eighty-four family members of the Sewol ferry victims (32 men and 52 women) were recruited and their EEG was compared with that of 25 (13 men and 12 women) healthy controls...

Romantic love in late life is often beneficial, though not without challenges. Financial concerns and objections of adult children can interfere with a late-life individual's decision to commit to a romantic relationship. In this study, the experience of romantic love for women who enter committed relationships in later life was examined. Fourteen women between the ages of 65 and 84 who had lived the experience of romantic love in late life were interviewed. By using Moustakas's qualitative Transcendental Phenomenological method, several themes emerged to provide a description of the phenomena...

Chile allows abortion under no circumstances. Whether it's fetal anomaly incompatible with life or congenital malformation resulting in little or no life expectancy, all Chilean women are expected to carry their pregnancies to term. In this context, in January 2015 the Chilean Congress began debating a bill to legalize abortion on three grounds, including fatal congenital malformation. The medical community, including midwives, has presented its views for and against, especially on how the law may affect clinical practices; in addition, women, many of whom have experienced a fatal congenital malformation diagnosis, have weighed in...

BACKGROUND: Providing care at end of life has consequences for caregivers' bereavement experience. 'Difficulty moving on with life' is an informative and unbiased symptom of prolonged grief disorder. Predictors of bereaved caregivers' ability to 'move on' have not been examined across the population. AIM: To identify the characteristics of bereaved hands-on caregivers who were, and were not, able to 'move on' 13-60 months after the 'expected' death of someone close...

A research trajectory is reported that created state-of-the-art interdisciplinary guidelines for care of women and their families who arrive in the emergency department with pregnancy loss. These guidelines include attention to mother and family bereavement as well as care of the fetus. Design was a triangulated non-experimental exploratory action research for the purpose of changing practice. Included were: (1) A qualitative study of emergency room nurses and physicians to assess beliefs/barriers to providing optimal care for pregnancy loss patients...

Supporting family members to view the body of their relative after a traumatic death is a critical role for social workers in hospital and morgue settings; however, this role has had little attention in the literature. In-depth interviews with 48 bereaved family members explored their experiences of helpful and unhelpful aspects of support when viewing the body of their deceased relative. A central theme of "support as a relational interaction" was identified. Aspects of the connection and communication valued by participants within this relational interaction included: "permissions and possibilities," "information and preparation," "presenting with care," "time and timing," and "tuning to family...

BACKGROUND: An ongoing challenge for smart homes research for aging-in-place is how to make sense of the large amounts of data from in-home sensors to facilitate real-time monitoring and develop reliable alerts. OBJECTIVE: The objective of our study was to explore the usefulness of a routine-based approach for making sense of smart home data for the elderly. METHODS: Maximum variation sampling was used to select three cases for an in-depth mixed methods exploration of the daily routines of three elderly participants in a smart home trial using 180 days of power use and motion sensor data and longitudinal interview data...

OBJECTIVE: This study captured the end-of-life care experiences across various settings from bereaved caregivers of individuals who died in residential hospice. METHODS: A retrospective, observational design using the CaregiverVoice survey with bereaved caregivers of patients in 22 hospices in Ontario, Canada. The survey assessed various dimensions of the patient's care experiences across multiple care settings in the last 3 months of life. RESULTS: A total of 1153 caregivers responded to the survey (44% response rate)...

Bereavement is a potent and highly prevalent stressor among service members and veterans. However, the psychological consequences of bereavement, including complicated grief (CG), have been minimally examined. Loss was assessed in 204 post-9/11, when service members and veterans with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) took part in a multicenter treatment study. Those who reported the loss of an important person completed the inventory of complicated grief (ICG; n = 160). Over three quarters (79...

In this article, I'm interested in the 2,750 victims of the 9/11 attacks in New York City. I consider two connected issues. The first regards bereavement journeys of victims' families and the significance of receiving a body to bury vis-à-vis the normative assignment to find closure. The second issue I address is how forensic experts, their technologies and managing protocols interact with victims' families and their emotions. Using insights from Science and Technology Studies, I articulate some of the goods and bads of identification practices, and argue for extensive communication and cooperation between experts and victims' families...

Ana Todorovic's baby, Nadia, died just before birth. Ana says she received excellent care and was told when 37 weeks pregnant that Nadia was not going to survive for long.

This study is an exploratory study that aims to examine the mediating role of dual process coping in the relationship between risk factors and bereavement outcomes. A total of 178 Hong Kong Chinese bereaved older adults reported their bereavement-related information, dual process coping (Dual Coping Inventory, DCI), complicated grief (Inventory of Complicated Grief; ICG), depression (Geriatric Depression Scale, GDS) and loneliness (De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale, DJG) in face-to-face structured interviews...

Effective response by first responders in the immediate aftermath of a suicide death can play a critical role in reducing risk and promoting healing for family, friends and the larger community by helping people who are newly bereaved to cope with the immediate crisis, created by the death. They also can lay the foundation for the difficult journey of mourning and healing that must follow. Stressing the importance of a comprehensive and coordinated community response to suicide, this article addresses the principles and practices that are called for in the Guidelines by highlighting four distinct first responder communities: law enforcement and emergency medical services; medical examiners; funeral professionals; and clergy and faith leaders...

The death of a loved one can trigger a range of emotional, behavioral, motivational and cognitive reactions collectively labeled as "grief." There has been a recent resurgence of empirical interest in grief reactions, and there is now a general consensus that 7%-10% of bereaved individuals experience intense and chronic reactions termed Prolonged Grief (PG). However, there is ongoing debate about how best to conceptualize the construct. Recent studies have advanced this debate by applying a network, or causal systems approach...

BACKGROUND: Previous work shows that more affluent patients with cancer are more likely to die at home, whereas those dying from non-cancer conditions are more likely to die in hospital. Family caregivers are an important factor in determining place of death. AIM: To investigate associations between family caregivers' household income, patients' access to specialist palliative care and place of patients' death, by level of personal end-of-life care. DESIGN: A cross-sectional community household population survey...