Grief and causal attribution are two of the most commonly observed reactions to early miscarriage, yet little is known about these reactions or whether a relationship exists between them. This exploratory and descriptive correlational study examined the maternal grief intensities, the causal attributions, and the relationship between them in a convenience sample of 15 women who spontaneously aborted at 16 weeks' or less gestation. Women responded to both a written questionnaire and a semi-structured Interview at 6 to 10 weeks post-miscarriage. Their responses Indicated both current and retrospective reactions to their miscarriages. Responses were analysed using nonparametric statistics and content analysis. Maternal grief Intensities were found to vary widely at the time of the miscarriage, but all decreased significantly 6 to 10 weeks later. All women reacted to their miscarriage with attribution-seeking behaviors. The explanations most women formed were comprised of more than one causal attribution. Attributions were observed to have four distinct characteristics. Causal attributions were found to be either philosophical or physically oriented; to be organic, non-specific or maternal/self-blaming In origin; to be either dominant or non-dominant, and/or to refer to causalities immediate or prior to the physical event. At the time of the miscarriage a positive correlation between grief Intensity and maternal/self-blaming attributions and between grief Intensity and philosophical attributions was found. These relationships were not observed 6 to 10 weeks later. A positive correlation was found between grief intensity and attributions to maternal emotions at both the time of the miscarriage and 6 to 10 weeks later. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was: (1) to evaluate the level of grief experienced by healthcare providers in a pediatric subacute facility, (2) to compare the levels of grief between different groups of healthcare providers (Certified Nurses' Aides, Licensed Nurses, and Respiratory Care Practitioners), and (3) to describe the personality/demographic factors that influence a healthcare provider's ability to cope effectively with compound grief.

Bakgrund: Var 40:e sekund avslutar en människa sitt liv. Kvar lämnas många efterlevande som drabbas av en komplicerad sorg med ökad risk för fysisk och psykisk ohälsa samt suicidala beteenden. Efterlevande drabbas även av ensamhet och kan känna sig alienerade från sina sociala nätverk. Suicidrelaterad sorg leder ofta till ohälsosamma coping-beteenden samt skuld och skamkänslor. Syfte: Att beskriva efterlevandes erfarenheter av sorgen efter suicid av en närstående. Metod: En litteraturstudie baserad på kvalitativa artiklar. Artiklarna hittades i databaserna Cinahl och PsycInfo och kvalitetsgranskades med hjälp av en kvalitetsgranskningsmall utvecklad på Högskolan Väst. Resultat: Resultatet gav upphov till två huvudkategorier med tre subkategorier vardera. ”Sorgens många ansikten” med subkategorierna ”Den initiala chocken – Sorgens brutalitet”, ”Under ytan – Sorgens djup” och ”Obesvarade frågor – Sorgens ovisshet”, samt ”Livets vara eller icke vara” med subkategorierna ”Att hantera det obegripliga”, ”Skuldtyngda relationer” och ”Den suicidala spiralen”. Resultatet visar tydligt komplexiteten och djupet i de efterlevandes erfarenheter av sorgen. Dessa sträcker sig från chocken i sorgens initiala faser, till mer långsiktiga existentiella frågeställningar och funderingar i kampen med att hantera det obegripliga.  Konklusion: Studiens resultat visar att sorgens tidiga skeden präglas av chock, förvirring, smärta och svårigheter för den efterlevande att finna mening och begriplighet i situationen. I senare faser beskriver många efterlevande erfarenheter av existentiella frågeställningar, skuld och skam, kvarvarande frågor kring varför, samt ohälsosamma sätt att hantera sin sorg. De efterlevandes personliga beskrivningar av sina erfarenheter och känslor kan sannolikt ge människovårdande professioner viktiga insikter som kan vägleda dem i möten med målgruppen. / Background: Every 40th second someone commits suicide, leaving behind many survivors of suicide (SOS). SOS face complicated grief, with increased risk for physical and mental health issues and suicidal behaviours. SOS often feel lonely and alienated from their social networks. Suicide related grief often leads to unhealthy coping behaviours and feelings of guilt and shame. Aim: To depict SOS experiences of grief after the suicide of a loved one.  Method: A literature review based on qualitative articles. These were found using the databases Cinahl and PsycInfo. Their quality was examined with a template developed at University West. Results: Two main categories emerged, with three subcategories each. “The many faces of grief” with the subcategories “The initial shock – The brutality of sorrow”, “Below the surface – The depths of despair” and “Questions unanswered – The uncertainty of grief”, together with “To live or not to live” with the subcategories “Managing the unfathomable”, “Guilt strained relationships” and “The suicidal spiral”. The findings depict the complexity and profoundness of the SOS experiences. These range from the initial shock to more long-term, existential questions in the struggle to manage the unfathomable.  Conclusion: The findings show that earlier stages of grief are characterized by shock, confusion, pain, and difficulties finding meaning in the situation. In later phases SOS often experience existential questions, guilt and shame, lingering questions regarding why and unhealthy methods of dealing with grief. Personal records of SOS experiences and emotions can likely grant important insights to health professionals in their encounters with the targetgroup.

On the 8th of January 2005, two deep technical cave divers entered Bushman’s Hole, a water filled cave system in the Northern Cape in South Africa. One did not return, the other, fighting the elements for over 12 hours, narrated the event the very next day. This exploration into the narratives of a technical cave diver, is an interpretive journey into the various constructions informing the process of making sense of the death of a fellow dive partner. Exploration of the unknown within the wombs of the earth uncompromisingly challenges society’s dominant views on death and the safekeeping imperative. This exploration of the culture within death and survival in water filled cave systems is situated within the narrative ontology. Subsequently this exploration is aimed at continuously integrating the historical and cultural messages within this dangerous pastime in attempt to find meaning within the narratives of one such individual who ventured into this darkness. Ultimately this exploration is aimed at understanding narratives of sense making employed by a technical cave diver after the loss of a fellow diver amidst the passion that summoned them to explore the darkness within water filled cave systems; a pastime that has been labelled by some as the most dangerous sporting pursuit available to humankind. The journey starts with a literature exploration on death, moving through various researched understandings of the bereavement experience. From there it continues into the nature of interpretive methodology, with an in-depth focus on the historical and cultural situated nature of the narratives we employ in making sense of our world. This qualitative approach is based on the subjective experienced and interpreted meaning that I discovered while moving through the narrated text, hence this journey is also reflective of the co-construction of meaning that implicitly takes place between individuals when making sense of their own experiences. As the receiver of this narrative exploration, you too will find meaning within this journey, meaning co-constructed with the multitude of narratives and experiences that have historically and culturally entered your interpretive process. Implicit within this exploration is the unique nature of the death and bereavement experience within the specific context of deep technical cave diving. This journey places the emphasis on the uniqueness of the bereavement experience, and ultimately challenges the objective approach to dealing with bereavement as a psychologist. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Psychology / Unrestricted

Bakgrund: Plötslig död är ett svårdefinierat begrepp då det kan orsakas av många faktorer. Att hantera plötslig död och sorg som sjuksköterska samt att bemöta anhöriga i dessa situationer är utmanande. Sorgereaktioner är individuella och kan skilja sig mycket från person till person. Det är oftast sjuksköterskor som etablerar kommunikationen mellan anhöriga och vårdteamet vilket ställer höga krav på professionen. Syfte: Beskriva sjuksköterskors upplevelser av att bemöta anhöriga i sorg efter plötsliga dödsfall som inträffat inom akutsjukvård.Metod: En litteraturöversikt med kvalitetsgranskade kvalitativa artiklar från åren 2012–2021. Artikelsökningar gjordes i databaserna; Cinahl, Medline och PubMed. Analysen gjordes utifrån Fribergs (2017) beskrivning av en femstegs analys. Resultat: I resultatet framkom tre teman: Emotionell påverkan (Känslomässiga aspekter, känslor av misslyckande och otillräcklighet samt otrygg i mötet), Kommunikation (Informerande samtal och bygga goda relationer) samt Arbetsmiljö (Tidsbrist och samverkan i team). Slutsats: Sjuksköterskor upplevde mötet med anhöriga vid plötslig död som komplicerat. Bristfällig kunskap inom ämnet sågs som ett problemområde. Att ge möjlighet för sjuksköterskor att utveckla sina färdigheter genom utbildningar kring bemötande vid sorg skulle kunna medföra en hälsosammare arbetsmiljö för sjuksköterskan. Ökad utbildning skulle också kunna ha betydelse för kvalitén på vården då det gäller stöd till anhöriga. / Title: The nurse`s meeting with relatives in the event of sudden death: A qualitative literature review Background: Sudden death is a difficult concept to define as it can be caused by many factors. Dealing with sudden death, relatives and bereavement as a nurse is challenging. Reactions in bereavement are individual, it can differ between people. It is the nurse who often establishes the communication between relatives and healthcare, which places high demands on the nurse. Aim: Describe nurses´ experiences of treating relatives in bereavement after sudden deaths that occurred in emergency care. Method: A literature review was performed with a base in quality reviewed qualitative articles from the years 2012-2021. Searches of articles were made in databases Cinahl, Medline and PubMed. The analysis was based on a five-step analysis described by Friberg (2017).Result: The result revealed three themes: Emotional impact (Emotional aspects, feelings of failure and inadequacy and insecurity during the meeting), Communication (Informative conversations and create good relations) and Work environment (Lack of time and team collaboration). Conclusion: Nurses experienced the meeting with bereaved relatives after sudden death as complicated. Lack of knowledge in the subject was seen as a problem. Providing opportunities for nurses to develop their skills through education in bereavement could lead to a healthy work environment and a healthcare with high quality to support relatives.

Death is a drastic event in one’s life. Through grief, mourning and bereavement, people heal the hurt of their loss of a loved one. Little research exists on bereavement in Black transitional societies of South Africa. As such, the objective of this study was to explore how widows in South African transitional societies, whose husbands have died of terminal illnesses, experience bereavement, and how they cognitively process and cope with the loss. The Participants’ bereavement process was defined as starting when they become aware of their husbands’ anticipated death (anticipatory bereavement). Unstructured and structured interviews were conducted with 10 widows from the community under study and a thematic analysis was performed on the data. Five themes emerged concerning the Participants’ personal characteristics, their challenges and how they dealt with them, their experiences of stressors, and coping. Although the Participants responded to the news of the deaths of their husbands in a similar manner, there were differences in other responses, reflecting individual differences in coping strategies. Some Participants seemed more adaptive, with greater openness and flexibility in social cognition and greater problem-focused coping, while others showed more negative emotions in social interaction, greater loneliness, and expressed relatively closed and inflexible social cognition. However, positive or negative responses and coping did not necessarily determine whether bereavement would be functional or dysfunctional. It was found that the Participants’ anticipatory bereavement did not ease or shorten their sense or period of bereavement after their husband’s death. A model of the cognitive-affective-motivational-behavioural network of bereavement was developed, taking into account the role of culture and how each Participant’s cognition, affect, and the kind of attachment to their husbands motivated their behaviours in particular ways in coping effectively or ineffectively with their bereavement. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted

No description available.

This paper aims to present, discuss, and analyze the potential role of digital games within practices of memory, bereavement, and inheritance. The paper examines how users inhabit game environments, how their in-game memories and identities extend into the real world, and what kind of digital legacy players may be leaving behind. A study based on theoretical frameworks relating to memorialization and grief processing is conducted to look at how games can become part of mourning and memorialization practices.

Bakgrund: Palliativ vård omfattar inte bara vård av patienten utan innefattar även stöd till närstående, både under vårdtiden och efter dödens faktiska inträffande. Ett efterlevandesamtal är en möjlighet för distriktssköterskan att följa upp hur de närstående mår en tid efter dödsfallet och hur de upplevde vården under sjukdomstiden. Syfte: Att beskriva distriktssköterskors och sjuksköterskors erfarenheter av efterlevandesamtal inom kommunal hemsjukvård. Metod: Studien hade en kvalitativ deskriptiv design med en induktiv ansats. Åtta individuella semi-strukturerade intervjuer genomfördes via videomöte. Insamlat material analyserades genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys med fokus på det manifesta innehållet. Resultat: I resultatet framkom att efterlevandesamtal erbjöds efter alla dödsfall. Arbetsuppgiften beskrevs vara värdefull och mångsidig samt något som distriktssköterskan fått lära sig på egen hand. Efterlevandesamtalet hade en avslutande funktion från både distriktssköterskans och de närståendes perspektiv. Efterlevandesamtalets syfte ansågs vara att identifiera de närstående som var i behov av stöd samt ta emot synpunkter ifrån de närstående och reda ut eventuella frågor. Synpunkterna ansågs viktiga att ta vara på för att kunna kvalitetsutveckla vården. Slutsats: Betydelsen av efterlevandesamtalet var utifrån distriktssköterskornas perspektiv viktig för både distriktssköterskorna och de närstående. Distriktssköterskornas inställning till att genomföra efterlevandesamtal varierade. Framförallt ansågs det vara en värdefull arbetsuppgift men beskrevs även kunna vara svår och krävande. Vår studie skulle kunna hjälpa distriktssköterskor som känner en oro inför efterlevandesamtalet att se på det ur ett annat perspektiv. / Background: Palliative care includes not only the care of the patient, but also support for family members, both during the period of care and after the actual occurrence of death. A bereavement follow-up is an opportunity for the community health nurse to follow up on how the family members feel some time after the death and how they experienced the care during the illness. Aim: To describe the community health nurses experiences of bereavement follow-up in home care services. Method: The study had a qualitative descriptive design with an inductive approach. Eight individual semi-structured interviews were conducted via video meeting. The collected material was analyzed through a qualitative content analysis with a focus on the manifested content. Findings: The results revealed that bereavement follow-up are offered after all deaths. The task was perceived to be valuable and versatile, as well as something that the community health nurse had to learn on their own. The bereavement follow-up had an ending function from both the community health nurses and the family members perspective. The purpose of the bereavement follow-up was to identify the family members in need of support and to receive comments from the family members and sort out any issues. The comments were considered important to take advantage of to improve the quality of the care. Conclusion: From the perspective of the community health nurses the bereavement follow-up was important for both community health nurses and family members. Among the community health nurses the attitude to have bereavement follow-up varied. Above all, it was considered a valuable task but could also be difficult and demanding. Our study could be helpful to those who are anxious about the bereavement follow-up, to look at it from a different perspective.

Background: Loss experiences such as the loss of a spouse, a close relative or significant others become more likely in old age and may be strongly related to specific unmet health care needs. These unmet needs may often remain undetected and undertreated followed by a negative impact on well-being and social role functioning. The present study aims at exploring the relationship between loss experiences and specific unmet care needs in old age. Methods: As part of the study „Need assessment in the oldest old: application, psychometric examination and establishment of the German version of the Camberwell Assessment of Need for the Elderly (CANE)”, the adapted German version of the CANE was used in a population-representative telephone survey in a sample of 988 individuals aged 75+ years. Loss experiences within the last 12 months were assessed within the structured telephone survey. Descriptive and interferential statistical analyses were run in order to examine the association between loss experiences and occurring unmet care needs. Results: Overall, 29.7% of the oldest old reported at least one social loss with other relatives losses being the most frequent (12.5%), followed by non-family losses (10.7%). A significant relationship between loss experiences and a higher number of unmet care needs was observed, especially for close family losses. Other risk factors for unmet care needs were age, marital status, depression, social support and morbidity. Conclusions: This study provides, for the first time in Germany, data on the association between loss experiences and unmet needs. These findings may substantially contribute to the development of loss-specific interventions, effective treatment and health care planning for the bereaved elderly.