List of Titles

Unprepared for the depth of my feelings' - capturing grief in older people through research poetry

- Gerber, Katrin, Brijnath, Bianca, Lock, Kayla, Bryant, Christina, Hills, Danny, Hjorth, Larissa

Authors: Gerber, Katrin , Brijnath, Bianca , Lock, Kayla , Bryant, Christina , Hills, Danny , Hjorth, Larissa
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Age and Ageing Vol. 51, no. 3 (2022), p.
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Description: Background: Older people are more likely to experience bereavements than any other age group. However, in healthcare and society, their grief experiences and support needs receive limited attention. Through innovative, arts-based research poetry, this study aimed to capture older people's bereavement stories and the effects of grief on their physical and mental health. Method: Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 18 bereaved older adults were analysed using thematic and poetic narrative analysis, following a five-step approach of immersion, creation, critical reflection, ethics and engagement. Results: Research poems were used to illustrate three themes of bereavement experiences among older adults: feeling unprepared, accumulation of losses and ripple effects of grief. While half of participants reported that the death of their family member was expected, many felt unprepared despite having experienced multiple bereavements throughout their life. Instead, the accumulation of losses had a compounding effect on their health and well-being. While these ripple effects of grief focussed on emotional and mental health consequences, many also reported physical health effects like the onset of a new condition or the worsening of an existing one. In its most extreme form, grief was connected with a perceived increased mortality risk. Conclusions: By using poetry to draw attention to the intense and often long-lasting effects of grief on older people's health and well-being, this article offers emotional, engaging and immersive insights into their unique bereavement experiences and thereby challenges the notion that grief has an expiry date. © 2022 The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

"Resisting Social Identity Threat and Maintaining Resilience" : A Qualitative Study of Chinese Parents Following the Loss of an Only Child

- Wang, Anni, Guo, Yufang, Cross, Wendy, Lam, Louisa, Plummer, Virginia, Zhang, Wen, Zhang, Jingping

Authors: Wang, Anni , Guo, Yufang , Cross, Wendy , Lam, Louisa , Plummer, Virginia , Zhang, Wen , Zhang, Jingping
Date: 2024
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Psychol Trauma Vol. 16, no. 2 (2024), p. 167-175
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Description: Objective: Parents who lose an only child in China are stressed and traumatized due to social identity threat (SIT). This qualitative study aimed to interpret their experience to inform culturally and socially sensitive intervention strategies. Methods: Using a phenomenological approach, 17 bereaved parents who lost an only child were interviewed. The transcripts were analyzed using Colaizzi's method. Results: Three themes were identified, namely, "assuming a new social identity," "triggering social identity threat," and "resisting social identity threat and maintaining resilience." The study showed that SIT initially began with identity reconstruction, where self-identity and social identity occurred 1 after another. Once labeled with such social identity, the bereaved parents suffered social identity threat triggered by inner inferiority and external stigmatization. The bereaved parents undertook a variety of coping strategies to resist the threat and to maintain resilience of these strategies, 4 patterns depicting resilience and threat were interpreted. Conclusion: The findings offer an understanding of the multifaceted bereavement dilemma and lay a foundation for developing intervention strategies. Promoting or maintaining resilience and alleviating SIT are 2 important ways that help parents move on. To help them with identity reconstruction, the development of culturally sensitive resilience-based programs and the linking of social resources to solve practical problems are recommended. Community health professionals should encourage parents to maintain good health management to prevent their predicament from worsening. Raising economic assistance, building an elderly care support system, and promoting social acceptance are strategies that could be considered by policymakers. Clinical Impact StatementThe bereaved parents who have lost an only child in China is facing a multifaceted dilemma, which involves psychological, economic and cultural issues. This study applies the construct of social identity threat to interpretive lived experience of parents in China who have lost their only child. The study contributes to better understanding of their multifaceted bereavement dilemma, and lay the foundation for developing psycho-behavioural intervention strategies, which potentially also benefit other marginalized or traumatized bereaved groups. Results in this study offered several recommendations for psychological counselors, community workers, community health professionals, and government policymakers.

Understanding the bereavement care roles of nurses within acute care : A systematic review

- Raymond, Anita, Lee, Susan, Bloomer, Melissa

Authors: Raymond, Anita , Lee, Susan , Bloomer, Melissa
Date: 2017
Type: Text , Journal article , Review
Relation: Journal of Clinical Nursing Vol. 26, no. 13-14 (2017), p. 1787-1800
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Description: Aims and objectives: To investigate nurses’ roles and responsibilities in providing bereavement care during the care of dying patients within acute care hospitals. Background: Bereavement within acute care hospitals is often sudden, unexpected and managed by nurses who may have limited access to experts. Nurses’ roles and experience in the provision of bereavement care can have a significant influence on the subsequent bereavement process for families. Identifying the roles and responsibilities, nurses have in bereavement care will enhance bereavement supports within acute care environments. Design: Mixed-methods systematic review. Methods: The review was conducted using the databases Cumulative Index Nursing and Allied Health Literature Plus, Embase, Ovid MEDLINE, PsychINFO, CareSearch and Google Scholar. Included studies published between 2006–2015, identified nurse participants, and the studies were conducted in acute care hospitals. Seven studies met the inclusion criteria, and the research results were extracted and subjected to thematic synthesis. Results: Nurses’ role in bereavement care included patient-centred care, family-centred care, advocacy and professional development. Concerns about bereavement roles included competing clinical workload demands, limitations of physical environments in acute care hospitals and the need for further education in bereavement care. Conclusions: Further research is needed to enable more detailed clarification of the roles nurse undertake in bereavement care in acute care hospitals. There is also a need to evaluate the effectiveness of these nursing roles and how these provisions impact on the bereavement process of patients and families. Relevance to clinical practice: The care provided by acute care nurses to patients and families during end-of-life care is crucial to bereavement. The bereavement roles nurses undertake are not well understood with limited evidence of how these roles are measured. Further education in bereavement care is needed for acute care nurses. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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