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Acute and long-term grief reactions and experiences in parentally cancer-bereaved teenagers

BACKGROUND: Previous research shows that many cancer-bereaved youths report unresolved grief several years after the death of a parent. Grief work hypothesis suggests that, in order to heal, the bereaved needs to process the pain of grief in some way. This study explored acute grief experiences and...

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Autores principales: Bylund-Grenklo, Tove, Birgisdóttir, Dröfn, Beenaert, Kim, Nyberg, Tommy, Skokic, Viktor, Kristensson, Jimmie, Steineck, Gunnar, Fürst, Carl Johan, Kreicbergs, Ulrika
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8161967/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34044835
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12904-021-00758-7
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author Bylund-Grenklo, Tove
Birgisdóttir, Dröfn
Beenaert, Kim
Nyberg, Tommy
Skokic, Viktor
Kristensson, Jimmie
Steineck, Gunnar
Fürst, Carl Johan
Kreicbergs, Ulrika
author_facet Bylund-Grenklo, Tove
Birgisdóttir, Dröfn
Beenaert, Kim
Nyberg, Tommy
Skokic, Viktor
Kristensson, Jimmie
Steineck, Gunnar
Fürst, Carl Johan
Kreicbergs, Ulrika
author_sort Bylund-Grenklo, Tove
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Previous research shows that many cancer-bereaved youths report unresolved grief several years after the death of a parent. Grief work hypothesis suggests that, in order to heal, the bereaved needs to process the pain of grief in some way. This study explored acute grief experiences and reactions in the first 6 months post-loss among cancer-bereaved teenagers. We further explored long-term grief resolution and potential predictors of having had “an okay way to grieve” in the first months post-loss. METHODS: We used a population-based nationwide, study-specific survey to investigate acute and long-term grief experiences in 622 (73% response rate) bereaved young adults (age > 18) who, 6–9 years earlier, at ages 13–16 years, had lost a parent to cancer. Associations were assessed using bivariable and multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS: Fifty-seven per cent of the participants reported that they did not have a way to grieve that felt okay during the first 6 months after the death of their parent. This was associated with increased risk for long-term unresolved grief (odds ratio (OR): 4.32, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.99–6.28). An association with long-term unresolved grief was also found for those who reported to have been numbing and postponing (42%, OR: 1.73, 95% CI: 1.22–2.47), overwhelmed by grief (24%, OR: 2.02, 95% CI: 1.35–3.04) and discouraged from grieving (15%, OR: 2.68, 95% CI: 1.62–4.56) or to have concealed their grief to protect the other parent (24%, OR: 1.83, 95% CI: 1.23–2.73). Predictors of having had an okay way to grieve included being male, having had good family cohesion, and having talked about what was important with the dying parent. CONCLUSION: More than half of the cancer-bereaved teenagers did not find a way to grieve that felt okay during the first 6 months after the death of their parent and the acute grief experiences and reaction were associated with their grief resolution long-term, i.e. 6–9 years post-loss. Facilitating a last conversation with their dying parent, good family cohesion, and providing teenagers with knowledge about common grief experiences may help to prevent long-term unresolved grief. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12904-021-00758-7
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spelling pubmed-81619672021-06-01 Acute and long-term grief reactions and experiences in parentally cancer-bereaved teenagers Bylund-Grenklo, Tove Birgisdóttir, Dröfn Beenaert, Kim Nyberg, Tommy Skokic, Viktor Kristensson, Jimmie Steineck, Gunnar Fürst, Carl Johan Kreicbergs, Ulrika BMC Palliat Care Research BACKGROUND: Previous research shows that many cancer-bereaved youths report unresolved grief several years after the death of a parent. Grief work hypothesis suggests that, in order to heal, the bereaved needs to process the pain of grief in some way. This study explored acute grief experiences and reactions in the first 6 months post-loss among cancer-bereaved teenagers. We further explored long-term grief resolution and potential predictors of having had “an okay way to grieve” in the first months post-loss. METHODS: We used a population-based nationwide, study-specific survey to investigate acute and long-term grief experiences in 622 (73% response rate) bereaved young adults (age > 18) who, 6–9 years earlier, at ages 13–16 years, had lost a parent to cancer. Associations were assessed using bivariable and multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS: Fifty-seven per cent of the participants reported that they did not have a way to grieve that felt okay during the first 6 months after the death of their parent. This was associated with increased risk for long-term unresolved grief (odds ratio (OR): 4.32, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.99–6.28). An association with long-term unresolved grief was also found for those who reported to have been numbing and postponing (42%, OR: 1.73, 95% CI: 1.22–2.47), overwhelmed by grief (24%, OR: 2.02, 95% CI: 1.35–3.04) and discouraged from grieving (15%, OR: 2.68, 95% CI: 1.62–4.56) or to have concealed their grief to protect the other parent (24%, OR: 1.83, 95% CI: 1.23–2.73). Predictors of having had an okay way to grieve included being male, having had good family cohesion, and having talked about what was important with the dying parent. CONCLUSION: More than half of the cancer-bereaved teenagers did not find a way to grieve that felt okay during the first 6 months after the death of their parent and the acute grief experiences and reaction were associated with their grief resolution long-term, i.e. 6–9 years post-loss. Facilitating a last conversation with their dying parent, good family cohesion, and providing teenagers with knowledge about common grief experiences may help to prevent long-term unresolved grief. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12904-021-00758-7 BioMed Central 2021-05-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8161967/ /pubmed/34044835 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12904-021-00758-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Bylund-Grenklo, Tove
Birgisdóttir, Dröfn
Beenaert, Kim
Nyberg, Tommy
Skokic, Viktor
Kristensson, Jimmie
Steineck, Gunnar
Fürst, Carl Johan
Kreicbergs, Ulrika
Acute and long-term grief reactions and experiences in parentally cancer-bereaved teenagers
title Acute and long-term grief reactions and experiences in parentally cancer-bereaved teenagers
title_full Acute and long-term grief reactions and experiences in parentally cancer-bereaved teenagers
title_fullStr Acute and long-term grief reactions and experiences in parentally cancer-bereaved teenagers
title_full_unstemmed Acute and long-term grief reactions and experiences in parentally cancer-bereaved teenagers
title_short Acute and long-term grief reactions and experiences in parentally cancer-bereaved teenagers
title_sort acute and long-term grief reactions and experiences in parentally cancer-bereaved teenagers
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8161967/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34044835
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12904-021-00758-7
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