M.Cur. / The death of a child is like none other. The impact shakes the world of parents in its entire being. This research tells the story of parents' experience of the couple relationship after child bereavement. The objectives of the research are to: • explore and describe a parent's experience of the couple relationship after child bereavement; and • describe guidelines for the advanced psychiatric nurse practitioner to provide support to parents who have experienced child bereavement in order to promote their mental health through the mobilisation of resources. The paradigmatic perspective of this study is guided by the Theory for Health Promotion in Nursing (Rand Afrikaans University, Department of Nursing Science, 2002:2-8). The focus is on the whole person. A functional approach was followed based on Botes's model (Botes in Rand Afrikaans University: Department of Nursing, 2002:9-15) for nursing research. The researcher utilised a qualitative, descriptive, exploratory and contextual design (Mouton, 1996: 102). An authoethnographic strategy was implemented, & Bochner in Denzin & Lincoln, 2001:739, 747). In-depth, semi-structured, phenomenological interviews were held with parents meeting the sampling criteria. Consent for the research was obtained from the Rand Afrikaans University and informed consent was obtained from the parents volunteering to participate in the research.

D.Cur. / Although the general topic of death is receiving increasing attention by the medical community, little is known about the impact that pregnancy loss has on the lives experiencing it. Statistics show that the problem is widespread, but they tell nothing about the tears, the regrets, the feeling of guilt and the long process of rebuilding hope. And the medical community is not consistent in attitude or skill where caring for mothers with pregnancy loss. Mothers expect their physicians to be understanding and compassionate, especially when the worst fear has become a reality and the baby had died. Sadly, these expectations are too often unfulfilled, leaving the mother angry and confused, instead, death becomes the enemy to be avoided and opposed at all costs. The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual framework of support to mothers with pregnancy loss to assist midwives and doctors in supporting these mothers

This study was undertaken in an attempt to investigate the analogy between the Crisis Intervention Model and the Funeral Rites of the amaXhosa. The latter group includes both traditional as well as Western Christian elements. The study was confined to the geographical area of Ciskei and more specifically the villages in and around Peddie and Ndevana near Zwelitsha, as regards traditional people, and the Black townships of Zwelitsha and Whittlesea,as regards more Westernized people. It is, however, the contention of the study that experiences discussed here are common to Blacks in South Africa irrespective of ethnicity. The justification for this generalisation is based on anthropological commonalities as well as historical vicissitudes among Blacks in Southern Africa. For instance, ritual slaughter performed after death in propitiation with the ancestors is known among all Blacks in South Africa. Also the Politico-historical events as well as socio-economic developments in the country affect Blacks in a more or less similar manner. For example, the changing family structure among Blacks, because of changes from one type of economy to another, is a social process affecting all Blacks in Southern Africa - in particular the working class (Colin Murray, 1980). The Funeral rites under study are postulated as possessing elements of therapeutic and practical value which result in the alleviation of grief and the encouragement of full acceptable means of mourning. The study is chiefly descriptive and anthropological material has been used. Recordings were made from participant observation whenever there was a funeral in the area studied. Information about funerals is easily obtainable as these are announced over Radio Ciskei and Radio Xhosa every evening. Mourners and interveners were interviewed. The former to elicit the needs they had felt, the latter to elicit the needs they had perceived the former to have. The Crisis Intervention Model is fairly simple to understand and uses practical theory. Therefore, it is not surprising that there should be elements of similarity between this model and the funeral rites of the amaXhosa as both deal with people in need of support. These funeral rites are rooted in a culture which has as one of its crucial aspects intimate, face-to-face interaction of its members in constant exchange as regards both emotional support and services. These "credit networks" ensure that a person is never bereft of emotional support. Moreover, temporary services are always accorded to a person in crisis. An effort has been made to relate the Crisis Intervention Model to the South African context of Blacks (both traditional as well as Christian). By necessity this has meant looking at all cultural dimensions of Black society - historical, political, economic and cultural, in order to provide a clearer picture of the people under study. That is, human psychological experiences of grief and mourning are seen as processes related to and developing within the concrete everyday realities. Some of the experiences described have been personally witnessed by the researcher in her personal involvement with cultural practices. Funerals are, of necessity, sad occasions and this study, using participant observation methods sometimes brought on sad memories of the researcher's own losses of loved ones. In the discussion a comparison was made between the traditional methods of grief work, the Crisis Intervention theory and the mourner studied and it was found that these rites do indeed, contain therapeutic and practical elements of dealing with grief and mourning, comparable to the Crisis Intervention Model. Finally in the conclusior a proposal for further areas of study in this field was suggested.

This study was designed to discover parents' experience following a stillbirth or early infant death. The conceptualization of the research problem was based on Kleinman's (1978) cultural system model which directed the researcher to elicit directly from clients their explanatory models, or their way of viewing the experience. The specific research questions were (1) How do couples perceive and interpret their experience following stillbirth or early infant death? and (2) How do couples view the social support they have received at the time of their infant's death? Six couples, who were recruited primarily from bereavement support groups, participated in the study. Each couple had experienced a stillbirth or early infant death between four months and four years prior to the study. Data were collected from the subjects with the use of unstructured interviews, allowing the experiences to unfold as they were perceived by the participants. Four main themes that evolved from the data were (1) anticipation of parenthood and the shattering of hopes with the death or knowledge of impending death of the infant; (2) a multidimensional personal grief experience; (3) an interpersonal grief exerience influenced by the social support of health care professionals, of friends and family and of the spouse; and (4) reflection and search for meaning in the experience. The discovery of couples' perceptions of their bereavement experience and their view of the support received will assist in enhancing the ability to provide more effective nursing care to bereaved families. Implications for nursing practice, research and education are delineated. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate

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.

Thesis (Ph.D. ( Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2016 / The Euro-American bereavement literature has greatly contributed towards the management of the bereaved over centuries by psychologists. However, much of the literature lacks inclusion of non-westerners‘ bereavement and grief experiences. In light of this historical weakness, the aim of the present study was to explore bereavement and mourning in the Northern Sotho community with a view to identifying and documenting the psychological themes embedded in this culturally constructed experience. A total of fourteen participants (male = 7; females = 7; aged between 35 and 85) were selected using the snowball sampling method. The data were collected using in-depth semi-structured interviews. Hycner‘s adapted phenomenological explicitation method was used to analyse the data. The four major themes that emerged during data-explicitation were; a). The influence of belief systems on the conception of death; b). The experience and expression of the pain of grief; c). Diverse bereavement rituals and cultural practices that are performed to heal the bereaved, and; d). Various mechanisms that are put in place to quarantine the bereaved from spreading death contaminations. The study findings suggest that the conceptualisation, experience, and expression of bereavement is profoundly influenced by an interplay of a plethora of factors that include people‘s varying worldviews, cultural practices, and now, the emerging new-global culture. Based on the findings of the study, a culturally informed bereavement conceptual model was developed. The model proposes that a clinician should be guided by four domains when providing grief counselling. The first domain involves the clinician looking into the client‘s belief system and how this influences the client‘s grieving process. The second domain entails analysis of the nature and circumstances surrounding death. In the third domain, the clinician will need to examine the influence of various psychological, physical and socioeconomic factors on the client‘s grief. And lastly, the clinician will need to determine the intensity and duration of the grief experience. It is envisaged that this model could help in the provision of person-centred grief counselling services within a multicultural context. The study further elaborates on the lessons the field of psychology could learn from the study findings. The findings are also discussed in the context of the emerging field of Africa psychology. / SAHUDA/NIHSS

The sudden or violent death of a loved one (e.g., suicide, homicide, accident, etc.) poses unique challenges for the bereaved. Research has found such losses to be associated with higher levels of chronic psychological distress, now termed Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder in the DSM-5 and Prolonged Grief Disorder in the forthcoming ICD-11. The present study, developed through the lens of Multidimensional Grief Theory (MGT; Kaplow et al., 2013), explored underlying mechanisms and risk and protective factors for both prolonged grief and posttraumatic growth. With a mixed college and community sample of 374 traumatically bereaved adults, results of a path analysis suggest that insecure attachment strategies play a significant role in prolonged grief symptoms through the mediators of identity distress and shattered assumptions. Faced with the traumatic loss of a loved one, the ability and desire to effectively access relationships facilitating intentional processing that promotes cognitive reorganization is predicated on the bereaved's internal working model of attachment. Specifically, attachment anxiety in relation to close others and God, and attachment avoidance in relation to close others, were indirectly associated with prolonged grief. However, attachment avoidance in relation to God was negatively associated with both prolonged grief and posttraumatic growth, and there was no evidence for mediation. One explanation for this could be that individuals endorsing divine attachment avoidance are less likely to make negative religious attributions about the death, which have been associated with chronic psychological distress, but are also less likely to be able to utilize the sacred as a context for growth. By considering traumatically bereaved individuals' internal working model of attachment, level of identity distress, and potentially shattered assumptions, our model accounted for each of MGT's three domains of distress thought to impact post-lost adjustment. That these domains were both inter-related and associated with differential outcomes speaks to the complex nuances of each grief journey and the importance of attending to more than global levels of distress. These results inform the assessment and treatment of individuals bereaved through sudden or violent means.

Thesis (M.A. (Clinical Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / The study sought to explore the sequel of bereavement on parentally bereaved students at the University of Limpopo. The study was qualitative in nature. Ten bereaved students (4 Males & 6 Females) were purposefully sampled and interviewed. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using a reflexive thematic data analysis method. The major themes that emerged from the data were isolated and outlined. The results showed that post-parental bereavement, students experienced and expressed their loss distinctly. Notably, their grief was expressed both emotionally, cognitively, behaviourally, physically and spiritually. In spite of the grief having been experienced and expressed diversely, the findings revealed that factors such as - a) circumstances surrounding the death of a parent, b) religious beliefs and cultural practices, c) meanings attached to the death, and, d) lack of support post-bereavement, all influenced participating students’ grief trajectory. On the one hand, the results highlighted that students relied on diverse strategies (e.g., bereavement rituals, counselling services) which helped in their processing and coping with the death of a parent. In particular, psychological counselling was found to be beneficial, although it was associated with mental health stigma. The study findings therefore suggest that parental bereavement can result in the experience of grief, which is an emotionally painful experience that can be complicated secondary to a myriad of factors. A complicated grief experience could lead to academic underachievement in the student population. This therefore suggests that complicated bereavement needs to be treated as earliest as possible in order to avert its interference with the academic work of affected students. It is recommended further that higher institutions of learning need to invest more efforts to educate students on bereavement and its potential impact on their studies. Additionally, efforts should be directed at addressing the stigma of mental illness on-campus so as to help improve the user friendliness of on campus student psychological counselling services. The study is concluded by, amongst others, recommending that future research needs to look closely into university students’ meaning making process in bereavement.

This study sets out to demonstrate the usefulness of cybernetic description for grief therapy, specifically the field parental loss of a child. This paradigm was used to facilitate an alternate mode of conceptualisation, one engendering a more encompassing, aesthetic view. The following core cybernetic concepts were used: punctuation, complementarity, pattern and metapattern forming the framework of cybernetic description as applied. A literature study attempting to merge the gestalt of cybernetic description with that of bereavement theory, specifically that pertaining to the parental loss of a child, is presented. A single case study is described illustrating how cybernetic description is applied to the grief narrative. Arising out of this, the implications of cybernetic description for the field of grief and social work in general are outlined. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Science (Mental Health))