OBJECTIVE: Describe changes in mothers' and fathers' grief from 1 to 13 months after infant/child neonatal/pediatric intensive care unit death and identify factors related to their grief. METHODS: Mothers (n = 130) and fathers (n = 52) of 140…
Losing a child is devastating for parents and grandparents. Family and friends generally focus on comforting and supporting the bereaved parents, unintentionally ignoring the bereaved grandparents. Grandmothers and grandfathers often struggle with…
As a psychopathological function of prolonged grief (PG) disorder, disruptions in autobiographical memory have been shown in bereaved individuals in terms of preferred access of loss-related memory and reduced specificity in non-loss-related memory.…
Forty-five families of children with life-threatening illnesses for up to 10 years were interviewed. The children required many medical disciplines, as well as social, educational and material provisions, and parents described the complex and often…
AIM: To describe and understand the experiences of Chinese family members of terminally ill patients during the end of life process in a palliative care unit. BACKGROUND: Palliative care aims to provide care to dying patients and their family…
The death of a child can have a devastating effect on the family. The pediatrician has an important role to play in supporting the parents and any siblings still in his or her practice after such a death. Pediatricians may be poorly prepared to…
"Losing Thomas & Ella" presents a research comic about one father's perinatal loss of twins. The comic recounts Paul's experience of the hospital and the babies' deaths, and it details the complex grieving process afterward, including themes of…
Child life-limiting illnesses are those from which there is no reasonable hope of cure and from which children will die. Only recently have these illnesses been recognized as a discrete category and thus relatively little research has focused…
Abstract Perinatal loss is a devastating event for any mother. What is often overlooked is a mothers continued ability to lactate following the death of her child. Donor breast milk is a commodity highly sought after given its value for feeding sick…
Results of a longitudinal study of the effects of bereaved parents' participation in a self-help group and in psychotherapy are presented. Active self-help group participants evidenced unique changes in attitudes about bereavement. Reasons for lack…
An increasing body of research suggests that the death of a child results in a unique form of bereavement for surviving parents. A study reviewed research findings on parental bereavement, including those from the author's ongoing longitudinal study.…
Parenting and providing extensive care to a child with a life-limiting or life-threatening disease while being aware of the future loss of the child are among the most stressful parental experiences. Due to technical and medical improvements,…
INTRODUCTION: Grief among bereaved parents is known to cause psychological distress and physical illness, but knowledge concerning factors that can contribute to health promotion after bereavement is scarce. Childhood cancer remains the most common…
CONTEXT: Approximately 25% of children diagnosed with cancer eventually die. Losing a child puts parents at increased risk for developing psychological problems. OBJECTIVES: To explore parents' perceptions of the interaction with health care…
BACKGROUND: Perinatal losses are traumatic events in the lives of families and can have serious long-term consequences for the psychological health of parents and any subsequent children. DESIGN: A prospective follow-up study. METHODS: We recruited,…
This is the intertwined story of three unique individuals—each of us parents, researchers, givers and takers—who met and changed each other’s lives, whilst simultaneously struggling to comprehend and make meaning out of our own personal losses. After…
OBJECTIVE: To summarize and synthesize extant literature on memory making in bereavement care for parents who experience the death of a newborn and to identify opportunities for future research. DATA SOURCES: We conducted a systematic search of four…
Prior research has found high levels of distress in parents who experience the death of a child; however, Romanian parents, whose experiences are influenced by the nation's shared historical trauma, have not been studied. This mixed-methods study…
Traditionally, family-focused care extends to parents and siblings of children with life-limiting conditions. Only a few studies have focused on the needs of grandparents, who play an important role in the families of children with illness and with…
BACKGROUND: Children's hospices provide a range of services for babies, children and young people who have a life-limiting or life-threatening condition, including care after death in specialist 'cool bedrooms'. Care after death is a challenging but…
BACKGROUND: Children's hospices provide a range of family-centred care services, including bereavement support. Not all hospices provide specific services for grandparents. AIM: To explore how a hospice-based bereavement support group supported…
By employing the phenomenographic approach, the present study explored children's cognitive understanding of and emotional responses to death and bereavement. Participants included 52 Korean, 16 Chinese, and 16 Chinese American children ages 5-6.…
BACKGROUND:
Despite reported challenges encountered by nurses who provide palliative care to children, few researchers have examined this phenomenon from the perspective of nurses who care for children with life-threatening illnesses in pediatric…
Objective: The one-child policy has existed in China for more than 30 years. It brought benefits to the country's economic development and reduced the magnitude of the population within a short period. However, it has led to the emergence of a…
BACKGROUND: Bereaved parents experience significant psychosocial and health sequelae, suggesting that this population may benefit from the ongoing extension of support and resources throughout the grief journey. The interaction of hospital staff with…
BACKGROUND: The death of a child is a devastating event that results in profound grief and significant psychosocial and physical morbidities in parents. The parental grief journey is a complex phenomenon necessitating the utilization of newer models…
Parents who experience the loss of a child have unique and valuable insights into the grief journey and can help health care providers identify key components intrinsic to the development, implementation, and maintenance of a comprehensive…
BACKGROUND:
Bereaved parents experience significant psychosocial and health sequelae, suggesting that this population may benefit from the ongoing extension of support and resources throughout the grief journey. The interaction of hospital staff with…
Purpose: Parents of children that die from cancer are at increased risk of significant long-term psychosocial and physical morbidities. Less, however, is known about the experience of parents early in the grief process. Currently used frameworks and…
Abstract
The death of a child can be seen as one of the most devastating experiences for parents which can result in a unique and enduring grief. Parents with surviving children face the task of navigating their own grief while continuing to parent.…
