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Grief Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Multiple Group Comparisons

CONTEXT: Grief researchers are concerned that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic will precipitate increases in severe, persistent, and disabling grief, termed prolonged grief disorder or persistent complex bereavement disorder. We recently demonstrated that higher grief levels are expe...

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Autores principales: Eisma, Maarten C., Tamminga, Aerjen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7553097/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33065207
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.10.004
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author Eisma, Maarten C.
Tamminga, Aerjen
author_facet Eisma, Maarten C.
Tamminga, Aerjen
author_sort Eisma, Maarten C.
collection PubMed
description CONTEXT: Grief researchers are concerned that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic will precipitate increases in severe, persistent, and disabling grief, termed prolonged grief disorder or persistent complex bereavement disorder. We recently demonstrated that higher grief levels are experienced after COVID-19-related bereavement than natural bereavement. Death circumstances during the pandemic (e.g., reduced social support, limited opportunities for death rituals) may also hamper the grief process for non-COVID-19-related bereavement, yet no quantitative research has specifically addressed this issue. OBJECTIVES: To test if grief severity is higher during than before the lockdown after non-COVID-19-related bereavement. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey including questions on sociodemographic and loss-related variables and a grief measure was conducted among a sample of 1600 bereaved adults (78% females), participating before (n = 731) or during (n = 869) the pandemic, including people who had experienced a loss before the pandemic (n = 456) or during the pandemic (n = 200) recently (five months ago or less). RESULTS: No significant differences emerged between grief levels in people participating before or during the pandemic. However, being recently bereaved during the pandemic elicited more severe grief than before it (d = 0.17; d = 0.18). Effects remained significant after controlling analyses for relevant loss-related variables. CONCLUSION: Among all bereaved persons, grief severity was no different during the pandemic compared with before the pandemic. However, experiencing a recent loss during the pandemic elicited more severe acute grief reactions than before the pandemic, suggesting that dealing with loss may be more difficult during this ongoing health crisis.
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spelling pubmed-75530972020-10-13 Grief Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Multiple Group Comparisons Eisma, Maarten C. Tamminga, Aerjen J Pain Symptom Manage COVID-19 Content CONTEXT: Grief researchers are concerned that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic will precipitate increases in severe, persistent, and disabling grief, termed prolonged grief disorder or persistent complex bereavement disorder. We recently demonstrated that higher grief levels are experienced after COVID-19-related bereavement than natural bereavement. Death circumstances during the pandemic (e.g., reduced social support, limited opportunities for death rituals) may also hamper the grief process for non-COVID-19-related bereavement, yet no quantitative research has specifically addressed this issue. OBJECTIVES: To test if grief severity is higher during than before the lockdown after non-COVID-19-related bereavement. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey including questions on sociodemographic and loss-related variables and a grief measure was conducted among a sample of 1600 bereaved adults (78% females), participating before (n = 731) or during (n = 869) the pandemic, including people who had experienced a loss before the pandemic (n = 456) or during the pandemic (n = 200) recently (five months ago or less). RESULTS: No significant differences emerged between grief levels in people participating before or during the pandemic. However, being recently bereaved during the pandemic elicited more severe grief than before it (d = 0.17; d = 0.18). Effects remained significant after controlling analyses for relevant loss-related variables. CONCLUSION: Among all bereaved persons, grief severity was no different during the pandemic compared with before the pandemic. However, experiencing a recent loss during the pandemic elicited more severe acute grief reactions than before the pandemic, suggesting that dealing with loss may be more difficult during this ongoing health crisis. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. 2020-12 2020-10-13 /pmc/articles/PMC7553097/ /pubmed/33065207 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.10.004 Text en © 2020 The Authors Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle COVID-19 Content
Eisma, Maarten C.
Tamminga, Aerjen
Grief Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Multiple Group Comparisons
title Grief Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Multiple Group Comparisons
title_full Grief Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Multiple Group Comparisons
title_fullStr Grief Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Multiple Group Comparisons
title_full_unstemmed Grief Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Multiple Group Comparisons
title_short Grief Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Multiple Group Comparisons
title_sort grief before and during the covid-19 pandemic: multiple group comparisons
topic COVID-19 Content
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7553097/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33065207
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.10.004
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