Promoting the Adjustment of Parentally Bereaved Children

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn Howarth
Keyword(s):  
Life Events ◽  
Stressful Life Events ◽  
Specific Treatment ◽  
Parental Death ◽  
Psychological Development ◽  
Childhood Bereavement ◽  
Parentally Bereaved ◽  
Bereaved Children ◽  
Death Of A Parent ◽  
Detrimental Impact

The death of a parent is one of the most stressful life events to encounter during childhood. Given its detrimental impact on psychological development, a better understanding of outcomes associated with childhood bereavement and factors that affect these outcomes is necessary. The adjustment of bereaved children is linked to such factors as age of the child, sex of child and parent, circumstances of parent death, and the adjustment of the surviving caregiver. In this article I highlight considerations that may increase children's positive adjustment to parental death and also discuss specific treatment recommendations.

What Is Measured in Bereavement Treatment for Children and Adolescents? A Systematic Literature Review

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-387
Author(s):  
Kristine Jensen de López ◽  
Hanne Søndergaard Knudsen ◽  
Tia G. B. Hansen
Keyword(s):  
International Classification Of Diseases ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Inclusion Criteria ◽  
Prolonged Grief ◽  
Parentally Bereaved ◽  
Bereaved Children ◽  
Death Of A Parent ◽  
Classification Of Diseases

Objective Childhood bereavement from parental death can be a significant stressor. Treatment studies vary largely on how the effect of the grief treatment is measured. This sytematic review evaluates whether controlled bereavement intervention studies focus on symptomatalogy or grief as outcome measure and also summarizes the effect of grief treatment. Method For inclusion in the review, studies must report on children or adolesecents who experienced the death of a parent or sibling, must have a control group and must report results of a grief treatment. Results Eight studies met the inclusion criteria and reported in total on 30 different outcome measures. Only two studies measured grief as a separate outcome and both showed promising results for the treatment of grief with bereaved children. Conclusions Systematic use of validated measures of prolonged grief in treatment studies is needed. Implications of the findings and recommendations for future studies are discussed in the perspective of complicated grief becoming part of the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases. Grief interventions for parentally bereaved youth is promising but lack consistent use of reliable grief measures for solid documentation of the effect. The specific role of parenting and culture for the outcome of the intervention should be investigated in more detail.

Secondary Losses in Bereaved Children when Both Parents have Died: A Case Study

1999 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret M. Mahon
Keyword(s):  
Childhood Bereavement ◽  
Parentally Bereaved ◽  
Bereaved Children ◽  
Lack Of Control ◽  
Prolonged Pain ◽  
Parentally Bereaved Children

The death of a child's parent engenders many primary and secondary losses. In this article, a case study is used to examine secondary losses for two children following the sudden deaths of their parents. Childhood bereavement is described as comprised of prolonged pain, gradual acclimation, and tainted experiences. The framework is used to understand primary and secondary losses, as well as the effects of secondary losses and lack of control on the process of childhood bereavement. In this case, secondary losses, especially isolation, exacerbated the bereavement processes of these children. It is proposed that anticipating secondary losses, and minimizing them when possible, perhaps by providing bereaved children more control, is an appropriate framework for intervening with parentally bereaved children.

scholarly journals Childhood bereavement and adult mortality: A 65-year follow-up of the Stockholm birth cohort

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
A Hiyoshi ◽  
L Berg ◽  
A Grotta ◽  
Y Almquist ◽  
M Rostila
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Birth Cohort ◽  
Mortality Risk ◽  
Excess Mortality ◽  
Parental Loss ◽  
Health Consequences ◽  
Childhood Bereavement ◽  
Bereaved Children ◽  
Death Of A Parent ◽  
The Life Course

Abstract About 3% of children in Sweden, 4-5% in the UK, and 5% in the US experience the death of a parent during childhood. The event is highly unexpected and stressful and could have long-term social and health consequences across the life course. To alleviate grief, bereaved children may engage in health-damaging behaviours such as smoking, alcohol or drug abuse, violence, delinquency and risky sexual behaviour. Few studies have been able to study health consequences by childhood parental loss and mechanisms explaining associations across the life course. Using the Stockholm Birth Cohort Study (SBC), including all children born in 1953 in the metropolitan Stockholm area, we examined whether childhood bereavement is associated with all-cause mortality until age 63 and whether various pathways (e.g. economic, behavioral and social circumstances) account for the association. 15,117 individuals were followed between 1953 and 2018 using survey data and national registry data. We used Cox proportional hazard regression and mediation analysis for survival analysis to decompose direct and indirect effects. The death of a parent was associated with 40 to 50% elevated risk of mortality in offspring, and the association was mediated through delinquent behaviour in adolescence and income in adulthood especially for male offspring. Our findings suggest that parental loss has a life long impact on the mortality risk of bereaved children and that interventions targeting delinquency and socio-economic circumstances in bereaved children could be successful in reducing their excess mortality risk. Key messages Bereavement in childhood has a life-long impact on health. Interventions targeting delinquency and socio-economic circumstances could be successful in reducing the excess mortality risk.

scholarly journals The Family Bereavement Program: Description of a Theory-based Prevention Program for Parentally-Bereaved Children and Adolescents

2014 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim S. Ayers ◽  
Sharlene A. Wolchik ◽  
Irwin N. Sandler ◽  
Joan L. Twohey ◽  
Janelle Lutzke Weyer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Preventive Intervention ◽  
Parental Death ◽  
Social Adaptation ◽  
Concurrent Programs ◽  
Empirically Supported ◽  
Parentally Bereaved ◽  
Bereaved Children ◽  
The Family ◽  
Program Description ◽  
Future Work

This article describes a preventive intervention to promote resilience of parentally bereaved youth. This intervention includes separate but concurrent programs for youth and caregivers that were developed to change empirically-supported risk and protective factors. We first discuss the risk that parental death confers to youth mental health and social adaptation outcomes. Next, we discuss the theoretical framework underlying this program. After describing the content and structure of the program, we describe the results of an experimental field trial and discuss directions for future work.

Life Events and Psychiatric Illness

1968 ◽  
Vol 114 (509) ◽  
pp. 423-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Morrison ◽  
Richard W. Hudgens ◽  
Ramnik G. Barchha
Keyword(s):  
Life Events ◽  
Death Rate ◽  
Psychiatric Illness ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
Parental Death ◽  
Childhood Bereavement ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Lower Social Class ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Selection Of

Many investigators have studied the relationship between life events and psychiatric illness to discover whether certain events predispose to some disorders or precipitate them, and to discover the effect of illnesses already in progress on subsequent life events and the effect of events on established illnesses. The validity of such studies depends, among other things, on the selection of suitable controls. For example, if adult patients with depression differ from a group of controls in that they had a higher incidence of parental death, it might indicate that bereavement had made them more susceptible to the development of the illness. But if the depressed patients were from a lower social class than their controls, the greater incidence of bereavement might be explained by the fact that there is a higher death rate in that stratum of society. This would then cast doubt on a conclusion about a causal relationship in that group between childhood bereavement and depression in adult life.

Holding Parents So They Can Hold Their Children: Grief Work with Surviving Spouses to Support Parentally Bereaved Children

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Werner-Lin ◽  
Nancee M. Biank
Keyword(s):  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Clinical Work ◽  
Holding Environment ◽  
Family Culture ◽  
Parentally Bereaved ◽  
Bereaved Children ◽  
Children And Parents ◽  
Death Of A Parent ◽  
Children's Grief

A child's adjustment to the death of a parent is greatly influenced by the surviving parent's ability to attend to his or her own grief-related needs, to create and sustain a consistent and nurturing environment, and to encourage the child to express distressing or conflicting thoughts, feelings, and fantasies about the loss. Yet, the surviving parent's grief often compromises their ability to parent consistently and empathically. This article will illustrate how, by providing a holding environment for whole families, clinicians can help parents to facilitate children's grief reactions and, thus, mitigate long-term adverse mental health outcomes. Family Matters programs, designed and implemented in a community agency, use a holistic approach to family support and treatment in a milieu setting. Combining therapeutic work with surviving spouses and bereaved children supports children's grief while facilitating newly single parents as they adapt the structure of family life. When clinical work with families begins before the ill parent dies, the clinicians may build a relationship with the dying parent, prepare the child and surviving spouse for life after loss, and support continuity in family culture. We introduce a curriculum for simultaneously supporting bereaved children and parents, present a series of common challenges faced by surviving parents, and suggest avenues for intervention research.

Stressful life-events in childhood and risk of multiple sclerosis: a Danish nationwide cohort study

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (12) ◽  
pp. 1609-1615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nete Munk Nielsen ◽  
Bo V Pedersen ◽  
Egon Stenager ◽  
Nils Koch-Henriksen ◽  
Morten Frisch
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Sclerosis ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Stressful Life Events ◽  
Parental Divorce ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Parental Death ◽  
Stressful Life ◽  
Registration System ◽  
Civil Registration ◽  
Increased Risk

Background:Current knowledge concerning the association between exposure to stressful life-events (SFLEs) in childhood and later risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) is sparse.Objectives:We studied the associations between SFLEs in childhood and subsequent risk of MS in a nationwide cohort of 2.9 million Danes born from 1968 to 2011.Methods:A SFLE in childhood was defined as exposure before age 18 years to parental divorce, parental death, or death of a sibling, using information from the Danish Civil Registration System. MS cases in the cohort were identified in the Danish Multiple Sclerosis Registry. Associations of SFLE with MS risk were evaluated by incidence rate ratios (RR) of MS obtained in log-linear Poisson regression models.Results:Persons exposed to any SFLE in childhood were at 11% elevated risk of MS (RR = 1.11; 95% confidence interval: 1.03–1.20), compared to non-exposed persons. Stratification by subtype of SFLE showed that parental death and death of a sibling were not associated with MS risk. However, persons exposed to parental divorce were at 13% increased risk of developing MS compared to non-exposed (RR = 1.13; 1.04–1.23).Conclusions:Associations of SFLEs in childhood with risk of MS are weak. However, parental divorce is somehow associated with modestly increased risk of MS.

Parental Death and the Adjustment of School-Age Children

1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. William Worden ◽  
Phyllis R. Silverman
Keyword(s):  
Social Withdrawal ◽  
Parental Death ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Parentally Bereaved ◽  
Bereaved Children ◽  
The Difference ◽  
One Year

Findings on the emotional impact of parental death for dependent children have not been consistent due to serious methodological limitations. The Child Bereavement Study investigated a community-based sample of parentally bereaved children and compared their responses to those from matched non-bereaved controls. Children and their surviving parent were assessed four months, one year, and two years after the death using standardized instrumentation. Most of the difference between the two groups was not obvious until two years after the death. The bereaved showed higher levels of social withdrawal, anxiety, and social problems as well as lower self-esteem and self-efficacy. Although most bereaved children do not show signs of serious emotional/behavioral disturbance, there is a significantly large group of bereaved children who show serious problems at one year (19%) and at two years (21%).

Anxiety, depression and stressful life events among medical students: a prospective study in Antalya, Turkey

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehmet Aktekin ◽  
Taha Karaman ◽  
Yesim Yigiter Senol ◽  
Sukru Erdem ◽  
Hakan Erengin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Students ◽  
Prospective Study ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Stressful Life Events ◽  
Stressful Life ◽  
A Prospective Study ◽  
Anxiety Depression
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