Death Studies最新文献

Little is known about how telephone crisis support workers are impacted by frequent empathic engagement with callers in crisis, including those who are suicidal. This is the only known qualitative study to specifically examine the impact of their role on telephone crisis support workers' psychological wellbeing and functioning. Eighteen telephone crisis support workers participated in semi-structured interviews, providing detailed accounts of the impact of the role on their wellbeing and functioning. Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis of interview data resulted in four key themes. Results suggest that telephone crisis support workers' motivations, background, personal help-seeking and coping practices are likely to impact their experiences of psychological wellbeing and functioning in relation to empathic engagement with callers in crisis. Telephone crisis services should seek to integrate an understanding of workers' experiences into the provision of training, supervision and support strategies to optimize workers' wellbeing and functioning.

Social network support can be important when adjusting to life after the death of a close family member or friend. However, research has yielded inconclusive results regarding the relationship between social support and complicated grief reactions. Persons bereaved after a drug-related death (DRD) are a group of people who are at high risk of developing bereavement complications. Based on a Norwegian study on DRD bereaved close family members and friends (n = 250), this study examines the association between perceived social support, societal stigma, own social withdrawal, and prolonged grief symptoms (PGS). Own social withdrawal predicts the most variance in PGS symptoms: 8%, perceived social support: 3%, and societal stigma: 1%. Together the three focal variables explain 17.5% of variations in PGS. Results from the study point to the importance of social network support, which could reduce bereavement complications after a DRD.

Parents experience lasting psychological distress after a child's death from cancer. Limited evidence exists regarding difficult life events, duration of psychosocial impacts, and associated risk factors among bereaved parents. Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation surveyed self-selected, bereaved parents regarding difficult life events and psychosocial wellbeing (life satisfaction, unanswered questions, and missing the care team) through a public, cross-sectional survey. 176 bereaved parents (89% mothers) participated a median of 7 y after their child's death. The most difficult events were family vacations (80%), their child's birthday (80%), and anniversary of their child's death (76%). Only the latter did not improve with time. Greater life satisfaction was associated with male sex (ARR = 1.2, 95% CI:1.1-1.4) and being married/partnered (ARR = 1.2, 95% CI = 1.0-1.3). Having unanswered questions and missing the child's team were associated with annual income <$50,000 (ARR = 1.2, 95% CI:1.1-1.2; ARR = 1.2, 95% CI:1.0-1.3, respectively). Pediatric oncology programs need robust bereavement programs that include prolonged contact with families.

While existing psychological frameworks and their accompanying measures focus on death as anxiety-inducing and debilitating, we highlight an overlooked perspective of death-that death can be a basis for living with more meaning and presence. The present research adapts and validates the Death Mindsets Measure (DMM), which assesses the mindset that "death-is-life-enhancing," for a Norwegian context. Firstly, we translated the DMM and consulted with Norwegian bereavement experts and bereaved Norwegians on items' clarity and relevance to cultural perspectives of death. Secondly, we validated the Norwegian DMM (NDMM) on a predominantly bereaved community sample of Norwegians (N = 241). Using structural equation modeling, we confirmed the hierarchical two-factor structure of our measure. The NDMM also demonstrated high internal consistency and discriminant validity with existing death anxiety and death attitudinal measures. Finally, our measure explained additional variance in psychological well-being beyond existing death anxiety and attitudinal measures.

This work provides psychometric data on the validity and reliability of the Spanish adaptation of the Pet Bereavement Questionnaire (PBQ), as well as information on the intensity of bereavement in the Spanish population. The study evaluated 333 Spanish participants of legal age (M = 31.5; SD = 11.6), mostly women (76.3%). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tested the adequacy of three different structures present in literature, finding better fit indexes for a model that kept the original three-factor structure (grief, guilt, and anger) but rearranged 2 of the 16 items. Around 70% of participants reported signs of intense bereavement on the grief scale, with higher means among women. The results confirm adequate psychometric qualities of the PBQ, offering healthcare professionals a tool to evaluate bereavement intensity after the loss of a companion animal in Spanish samples.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way people lived, but also the way they died. It accentuated the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual vulnerabilities of patients approaching death. This study explored the lived experience of palliative inpatients during the pandemic. We conducted interviews with 22 palliative inpatients registered in a Canadian urban palliative care program, aimed to uncover how the pandemic impacted participants' experiences of approaching end-of-life. The reflexive thematic analysis revealed 6 themes: putting off going into hospital, the influence of the pandemic on hospital experience, maintaining dignity in care, emotional impact of nearing death, making sense of end-of-life circumstances and coping with end-of-life. Findings highlight the vulnerability of patients approaching death, and how that was accentuated during the pandemic. Findings reveal how the pandemic strained, threatened, and undermined human connectedness. These lived experiences of palliative inpatients offer guidance for future pandemic planning and strategies for providing optimal palliative care.

The death of a loved one can have harmful effects on children's mental health, yet some bereaved children exhibit resilience. Various caregiver and child coping strategies, including active and avoidant coping, may affect the psychosocial functioning of bereaved children. The current study recruited 78 bereaved children aged 8-17 and one of their caregivers to explore: 1) how caregivers' coping strategies affect their child's coping strategies and resilience, and 2) associations between children's coping and their resilience. Results from the active coping mediation model revealed that children's active coping was significantly associated with their resilience, and caregivers' active coping was indirectly associated with children's resilience through children's active coping. The avoidant coping model was not significant. These preliminary findings highlight the importance of promoting active coping strategies among bereaved children and caregivers.

In this paper we respond to the commentary, Human misconnection? A response to Beuthin and Bruce on Medical Assistance in Dying providers' lived experience, by C. Lyon. While spirited and respectful debate of topics of interest to society are important, we illustrate how Lyon offers a polarizing reaction to findings with which he simply does not agree. We surface how Lyon ignores the methodological context underpinning the interpretive findings of the original study. In so doing, he violates an important tenet of scholarly critique and renders his claims and motivation questionable. We argue that Lyon's commentary is an opinion piece disguised as scholarly critique that will limit thoughtful conversation about assisted dying that might otherwise engage and generate new understandings across difference.

For a minority of the bereaved, the loss of a significant other can trigger an overwhelming emotional reaction and impaired functioning across life domains, known as prolonged grief disorder (PGD). Hence, ongoing efforts have been made to refine existing treatments to increase their efficacy and to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of grief reactions. This study presents the results of an open clinical trial of the feasibility and effectiveness of the Meaning in Loss (MIL) protocol in an online format. The brief intervention of 12 to 16 sessions combines constructivist and narrative strategies to explore and work through impediments to meaning reconstruction in loss. The sample included 25 participants diagnosed with PGD who were treated by six therapists. Baseline and post-therapy comparisons showed a significant improvement in all clinical measures (grief symptomatology, depression and general distress) and an increase of meaning making regarding the loss. Meaning making was found to be a prospective mediator of symptomatic improvement in grief across the course of therapy. These findings suggest the effectiveness of the MIL protocol in decreasing grief specific and associated symptomatology and argue for the relevance of further controlled evaluations of its efficacy. Moreover, results confirm previous findings that meaning making is a relevant factor in the evolution of grief reactions, including in the context of psychotherapy.

Knowledge about effective coping strategies is important to support bereaved adolescents who have lost a parent. We used data on 104 bereaved adolescents (13-17 years) from the FALCON nationwide questionnaire study of parentally bereaved families. We examined associations between adolescents' control-oriented and escape-oriented coping strategies (KidCOPE scale) approximately two months after loss and grief symptoms (PG-13 scale) at six months follow-up. We also examined associations between the perceived efficacy of each coping strategy at baseline and grief symptoms at six months. The use of escape-oriented coping (e.g., distraction, self-criticism and social withdrawal) was associated with higher grief symptoms at six months follow-up (β = 0.4, 95% CI 0.1-0.9, p = 0.02), but no associations were found for control-oriented coping or perceived coping efficacy. Finding alternatives to the use of escape-oriented coping strategies may be an important part of grief interventions for bereaved adolescents.