Parental bereavement: How mode of death influences the grief process

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how the mode of dying influences the nature and course of parental bereavement. What are the internal and external factors that impact a parent\u27s grieving process? Does all parental bereavement follow a set of identifiable phases? This research was conducted with 28 bereaved parents who had experienced the death of a child from various causes. The mode of death was identified as either natural or unnatural dying. The bereaved parents whose children died from illness or sudden infant death were grieving a death from a natural dying mode; those bereaved parents whose children died from unnatural modes had experienced the death of a child from accidental deaths or murder. The participants ranged in age from 26 to 64, and the age of their children varied from 12 days old to 28 years. The length of time since the child\u27s death was four months to 13 years. Participants were comparable in terms of participant age, age of child, gender of participants, length of time since death, participants\u27 educational background, religious beliefs, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Participants were self-selected from four community sources. A semi-structured interview of 11 questions was conducted with each participant to elicit information about their previous experiences of death and other internal and external factors that could impact parental bereavement. Interview transcriptions and notes were used as research data. Four clinical models used with individuals experiencing unnatural stresses were contrasted in both groups, and nine themes were identified. The themes identified were: unanswered questions, uniqueness, constant reminders, reorganization, emptiness, guilt, meaninglessness, immortality, and death images. The data supported the assumption that there are differences in the course and process of parental bereavement dependent upon the mode of death; all parental grief is not identical. These findings have implications for parents who are living with their grief and for professionals who are in the helping fields. Clinical approaches need to consider mode of death as a significant issue when assessing morbidity in parental grief resolutions