<p>Grieving the deaths of immediate and extended family
members as well as friends is a common experience among traditional-age college
students. The overarching
purpose of this study was to provide a more nuanced understanding of how
various family grief communication factors (i.e., frequency, quality,
willingness to communicate—personal/perceived family, reasons for grief
communication avoidance—self-protection/relationship-protection) and self-construal might
be related to the post-loss functioning of grieving traditional-age college
students. Using hierarchical multiple regressions, I analyzed survey data from
369 grieving college students who were between ages 18 and 24 and had
experienced the death of at least one individual they considered as family
member within the last two years. First, the current findings indicated
that the more frequent grieving students communicated about their grief with
their family, the stronger their grief reactions. Second, the more students
reported family grief communication of high quality, the weaker their grief
reactions and the higher their post-loss family satisfaction. Third, there were
no relationships between grieving college students’ personal willingness or their
perceived family willingness to communicate about grief and their own grief
reactions. Fourth, grieving students’ post-loss family satisfaction levels were
similar regardless of how personally willing they were to communicate their
grief, but increased as they perceived their family members as more willing to
communicate about their grief. Fifth, the more grieving students avoided family
grief communicate for self-protection reasons, the stronger their grief
reactions and the lower their post-loss family satisfaction. Sixth, college
students reported similar levels of grief reactions and post-loss family
satisfaction regardless of how much they reported avoiding grief communication
to protect their family relationships. Seventh, quality, personal and family
willingness to communication, and reasons for grief communication avoidance did
not moderate the
relationship between the frequency of family grief communication and grieving
students’ post-loss functioning. Eighth, grieving students reported
similar levels of grief reactions and post-loss family satisfaction regardless
of how much they identified with interdependent self-construal, independent
self-construal, or a combination of both. Finally, the relationships between
grieving students’ reasons for grief communication avoidance (i.e.,
self-protection, relationship protection) and their post-loss functioning (i.e., grief reactions, post-loss
family
satisfaction) remained similar regardless of how much they identified with
independent or interdependent self-construal. The results of this study may be
used to inform clinical interventions and outreach efforts for grieving
traditional-age college students and their family members. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/12367304 |
| Date | 27 July 2020 |
| Creators | Chye Hong Liew (8889137) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Family_Grief_Communication_Self-Construal_and_the_Functioning_of_Grieving_College_Students/12367304 |
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