Although there is a strong body of existing literature on early parental loss, the majority of research is devoted to examining the consequences of parental death in childhood. Less is known about the long-term impact of this early loss. In particular, there is a lack of understanding about what it is like to live with early parental loss in young adulthood. This hermeneutic phenomenological study addresses the question: What is the young adult’s experience of living with early parental loss? An in-depth exploration into the lived meaning of early parental loss was conducted through open-ended interviews with 8 young men and women (20-30 years old) who lost a mother or father in childhood (between the ages of 9-18 years old). Interview data was coded and analyzed using van Manen’s (2014) hermeneutic phenomenological method, including the process of guided existential inquiry. The fundamental existential themes of lived body, lived time, lived space, and lived other were used as a guide to thematic representation of data. Ten identified themes characterize the essential qualities of this phenomenon: (1) The Grief Experience, (2) The Parentless Identity, (3) Body Awareness, (4) The Transition, (5) The Unexpected Visitor, (6) The New World, (7) The Empty Space, (8) Navigating Relationships in New Ways, (9) Continuing Bonds, and (10) The Relationship With Loss. Through rich experiential descriptions, presented findings demonstrate that the early death of a parent has an ‘ever after’ impact and significantly influences many facets of life in young adulthood. Implications for clinical practice and directions for future research are discussed. / Graduate / 2018-10-02

Ce travail se propose d’examiner les conséquences du décès parental précoce sur la trajectoire biographique des enfants, dans un régime de mortalité où la principale perturbation n’est pas le VIH/SIDA, mais une grave crise socio-politique. Le Burundi est l’un des épicentres du conflit traversé dans les années 90 par la région des Grands Lacs. A l’aide des données de l’Enquête Socio-Démographique et de Santé de la Reproduction (ESDSR) menée au Burundi en 2002, nous analysons l’impact du décès parental précoce sur un grand nombre de dimensions du parcours de vie des enfants burundais: mortalité, violence et exploitation sexuelle, séparation des membres de la fratrie, scolarité, entrée précoce dans le travail, ressources, conditions de l’héritage, entrée dans la vie reproductive et familiale. Ces analyses sont menées selon l’âge de l’enfant au moment du décès d’au moins un de ses parents, tout en cherchant à évaluer l’effet de la cause de décès des parents (crise/autre cause) sur les résultats obtenus. On montre que la perturbation du parcours de vie des enfants ayant précocement vécu le décès de leur père est mineure. A l’inverse l’expérience précoce de la mère ou du dernier parent survivant affecte la plupart des dimensions de la trajectoire biographique des enfants. La crise burundaise amplifie et, dans certains cas, transforme voire renverse la relation entre l’expérience précoce du décès d’au moins un parent et la trajectoire des enfants. L’orphelin à cause des massacres de masse de 1993 est un orphelin « politique » dont la protection et le soutien par les instances politiques, militaires, administratives et humanitaires est devenu un enjeu de la crise elle-même. / The aim of this paper is to analyze lifetime effects of parental death during childhood, in a country context where HIV/AIDS isn’t the main cause of death among young adults but deaths caused by a major socio-political crisis. During the 90’s, Burundi hosted the cradle of the regional conflict in the Great Lakes. A 2002 demographic, social and reproductive health survey in Burundi (ESDSR) will provide us the information required to analyze impact of early parental death, on a complex panel of life perspectives for children: mortality, violence and sexual abuse, separation of siblings, schooling, working at early age, resources, heritage, early marriage and age at first birth. These analyses are led by child age at early parental death, along with an attempt to estimate the effect from the cause of this death (crisis or other) on results. The strength of leading conclusions is consolidated by the mean of exchanging results, these results being derived from several analysis methods: bivariate and multivariate logistic models adapted or not to clustered data (standard, multilevel, marginal and fixed-effects logistic regressions).We bring lights on the minor effect of early father loss on child life trajectory. On the contrary, early mother or last living parent death experience affects almost every child life trajectory. Burundi crisis emphases but in some cases, reverses those effects from negative to positive. 1993 mass slaughters orphans are “political” orphans. Their political, military, administrative and humanitarian protections became part of the main goals, in the crisis itself.