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This article explores the digitalization of traditional funeral joss paper into digital commodities through the case study of the Chinese online cemetery 00tang.com. Joss paper are paper replicas of everyday items such as money and objects that are ritually burned as a form of symbolic offering to the deceased in accordance with traditional Chinese practices of ancestor worship. Using both ethnographic interviews and discursive interface analysis, I look at how the remediation of spiritual joss paper into digital objects complicates perceived dichotomy between the gift and commodity that requires new ways of thinking about the acts of social reciprocity, indebtedness, and obligation. Drawing on established literature relating to gift and digital economies, I argue 00tang's digitization of joss paper on internet cemeteries is reflexive of the biopolitical means by which the state and market forces work to subsume traditional ancestor worship into controllable and commodifiable labor of mourning. Here, the subversive wastefulness of the gift is replaced by its accumulation and preservation online. Digitization in this regard highlights the process by which objects take on different materiality, values, aesthetics, and productive labor practices, all of which fundamentally alters the symbolic regimes of death and the ritual gift economy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To investigate the level of adoption of evidence-based family engagement and support during end-of-life cancer care and subsequent bereavement and its contextual facilitators and barriers from health professionals' perspectives, and to explore differences between professional groups., Design: Contextual analysis using an online cross-sectional survey., Methods: This study was conducted in four Swiss hospitals and three home care oncology and palliative care services. Non-parametric testing was used to investigate the level of adoption and differences between nurses, physicians, occupational- and physiotherapists and psychosocial professionals (chaplains, onco-psychologists and social workers). The STROBE checklist for cross-sectional studies was followed., Results: The majority of the 111 participating health professionals were nurses. Adoption was statistically significantly higher during end-of-life care than bereavement, with nurses and physicians reporting higher levels than the other professional groups. Guidance on end-of-life family care was available in about half of the cases, in contrast to a quarter for bereavement care. Self-perceived knowledge, skills and attitudes were moderate to high, with nurses and physicians reporting higher levels than others, except for general skills in working with families. Organisational structures were experienced as rather supportive, with the psychosocial group appraising the organisational context as significantly less conducive to fully implementing end-of-life and bereavement care than others, particularly during the end-of-life phase., Conclusion: Evidence-based family engagement and support were better adopted during end-of-life care than bereavement. Overall, nurses and physicians felt better enabled to care for families compared to other professional groups., Patient or Public Contribution: No patient or public contribution., Protocol Registration: https://osf.io/j4kfh., Implications for the Profession And/or Patient Care: Implementation and quality improvement efforts should focus particularly on the bereavement phase and be tailored to professional groups., Impact: The findings show that evidence-based family engagement and support practices during end-of-life were rather well adopted in contrast to subsequent bereavement care, with nurses and physicians better enabled than other professionals to provide care. A better understanding of health professionals' contributions and roles in family care is important to build interprofessional capacity for evidence-based end-of-life and bereavement support., Reporting Method: The STROBE checklist for reports of cross-sectional studies was followed (von Elm et al., 2007)., (© 2024 The Authors. Journal of Clinical Nursing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Aim: To explore relatives' needs in terms of bereavement care during euthanasia processes, how healthcare providers respond to these needs, and the degree of commonality between relatives' and healthcare providers' reports., Design: A phenomenological design was employed, utilising reflexive thematic analysis to examine interviews conducted with relatives (N = 19) and healthcare providers (N = 47)., Results: Relatives' needs throughout euthanasia processes are presented in five main themes and several subthemes, with similar findings between both sets of participants. Although relatives infrequently communicated their needs explicitly to healthcare providers, they appreciated it when staff proactively met their needs. Healthcare providers aimed to assist with the relatives' grief process by tending to their specific needs. However, aftercare was not consistently offered, but relatives did not have high expectations for professional follow-up care., Conclusion: Our research offers important directions for healthcare professionals, empowering them to provide needs-based bereavement care during euthanasia processes. Moreover, it emphasises the importance of recognising the unique needs of relatives and proactively addressing them in the period before the loss to positively contribute to relatives' grief process., Implications for the Profession And/or Patient Care: Insights into relatives' needs in the context of euthanasia. Good practices on how healthcare providers can attend to relatives' needs before, during and after the loss IMPACT: Current literature and guidelines on needs-based bereavement care in the context of euthanasia and, more generally, assisted dying, are limited. These findings provide concrete directions for practice in supporting (nearly) bereaved relatives in the context of euthanasia, potentially mitigating adverse health outcomes., Reporting Method: Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR checklist)., Patient or Public Contribution: Relatives of deceased cancer patients were involved in the conduct of the study., (© 2024 The Authors. Journal of Clinical Nursing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Although everyone would agree that bereavement is extremely stressful, surprisingly little is known about changes in different facets of affective well-being in the years surrounding the death of a loved one. On the basis of the Socio-Economic Panel Study, we examined changes in cognitive well-being (life satisfaction) and different facets of affective well-being (happiness, sadness, anxiety, and anger) in the years around the death of a partner (N = 989) and child (N = 276). Data on the death of a partner and child as well as cognitive and affective well-being were assessed yearly since 2007. Multilevel analyses revealed that both events were associated with very large well-being impairments (>1 SD) that were most pronounced for sadness, happiness, and life satisfaction in the first year of bereavement. Afterwards, bereaved individuals managed to recover impressively well: Levels of life satisfaction, happiness, and sadness were on average similar 5 years after losing a partner or child compared with 5 years before the respective loss. Our findings suggest (a) that many individuals tend to be capable to even cope with highly stressful loss experiences and (b) that Set-Point Theory not only applies to life satisfaction but also different facets of affective well-being around the death of a loved one., (© 2022 The Authors. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Association of Applied Psychology.)

Objectives: Taking a dimensional view, this study aims to understand, among professional caregivers after patient deaths, the symptom distribution and development of the short-term bereavement reaction (SBR) network and the node-level links between the meaning of patient death (MPD) and the SBR network., Methods: A cross-sectional secondary analysis was conducted with existing data from 220 Chinese urban hospital nurses and physicians who experienced the most recent patient death within a month. MPD was measured by the 10 formative items of the meaning of patient death model, and SBR was measured by the Short-term Bereavement Reactions Subscale of the Professional Bereavement Scale. Both Gaussian graphical network analysis and Bayesian network analysis were applied to the SBR network, and Gaussian graphical network analysis was used to estimate the MPD-SBR network., Results: Frustrated and guilty are central nodes in the regularized partial correlation SBR network. Meanwhile, a traumatic event and failure at work are important bridge nodes between the MPD network and the SBR network. In the Bayesian SBR network, moved by the family's understanding, moved by the family's gratitude and sad mainly drive other nodes., Conclusion: After a patient death, nurses' and physicians' SBR networks feature professional-dimension symptoms at their core, while they follow 'personal to professional' and 'concrete to abstract' symptom development patterns. The personal meaning of a traumatic event and the professional meaning of a failure at work play key roles in bridging the MPD and SBR networks, and meanings of both the personal and the professional dimensions can link to professional-dimension reactions., Reporting Method: The manuscript followed the STROBE checklist for reporting cross-sectional studies., Patient or Public Contribution: No patient or public contribution., (© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Jacobite Studies have flourished in recent years in a large part owing to the digitization of manuscript collections. This study examines the impact of the decisions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarian collectors on the development of Jacobite Studies through an exploration of the transmission, history, and impact of Robert Forbes's recently digitized "Lyon in Mourning." In this, the work charts the passage of the "Lyon in Mourning" from Forbes's death in 1775 to various antiquarian collectors and on to the National Library of Scotland. In doing so, this study demonstrates the limitations and enduring repercussions of the early fixation with Forbes's papers deemed to be of Jacobite interest, and highlights the value of Forbes's wider writings for the modern studies of Jacobitism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The WHO definition of palliative care includes bereavement support as integral to palliative care, yet a previous survey of bereavement support in palliative care in Europe has shown a range of service responses to loss. A rigorous approach to agreeing and implementing a palliative care bereavement framework was required. Aim: The aim of this study was to develop consensus on best-practice recommendations for bereavement care principles, structures, processes and delivery based on current practice and evidence. Design: In accordance with Guidance on Conducting and Reporting Delphi Studies, a consensus-building five-round Delphi technique was performed. A scoping review of research literature informed drafting of 54 statements by the EAPC Bereavement Task Force. Evaluation of the statements was performed by an expert panel using a 5-point Likert scale. ⩾80% agreement were defined as essential items and 75%–79% agreement were defined as desirable items. Items with a consensus rating <75% were revised during the process. Setting/participants: The Delphi study was carried out by an expert panel among membership organisations of the European Association for Palliative Care. Results: In total, 376 email requests to complete Delphi questionnaire were distributed with a response rate of 23% (n = 87) and a follow-up response-rate of 79% (n = 69). Of the initial 54 statements in six dimensions, 52 statements were endorsed with 26 essential statements and 26 desirable statements. Conclusions: The six dimensions and 52 statements agreed through this Delphi study clarify a coherent direction for development of bereavement services in palliative care in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emmanuel’s most recent exhibition Substance of Shadows (2021), are examined as depicting rites of passage of memory and mourning, following the recent loss of both Emmanuel’s parents. They are discussed in dialogue with the five untitled incised drawings from Emmanuel’s 2008 Transitions exhibition, which addressed significant male rites of passage that were also liminal moments in male lives. In rites of passage, the citations, quotations and traces that form a subject’s socially constituted body are undone and rearranged. Transitions (5), however, represents the quotidian liminality of commuting and while it is fruitfully interpreted as a metaphor for death, a deeper exploration of this particular rite of passage is held over, this article argues, until Veil 1954 and Carbon Dad 2017. These two works are therefore examined as a continuation of the works of Transitions. Crucially, however, it is proposed that Emmanuel’s principal memory engagement in these two works is enacted materially, through his medium of obsolete carbon paper, rather than the exposed photographic paper of Transitions. The ways in which Emmanuel works with carbon paper allows a sensitive embodied exploration of aging and frailty to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim and Objectives: To explore the family's experience being offered memory making during end-of-life care in the adult intensive care unit and its use in early bereavement., Background: Family members of individuals who develop a critical illness requiring emergency hospitalisation are unlikely to be prepared for a possible death. This places them at increased risk of poorer bereavement experiences. One potential intervention is memory making, which is an act that provides tangible objects such as a handprint, footprint, lock of hair, or teddy bear, that allows connections with and provides meaningful memories about a person. Families in the adult acute population reportedly have positive reactions regarding the objects, but it is unknown the object's effects on early bereavement experiences., Design: Descriptive qualitative study utilising inductive reflexive thematic analysis. Reporting adheres to the COREQ checklist., Methods: Between May 2019-December 2020, a purposeful, convenience sample of 21 participants from a tertiary referral, adult intensive care unit in Australia were recruited to explore their experiences being offered memory making during end-of-life care and the objects use in early bereavement. Interviews were conducted using a semi-structured format and occurred at the participants' location of choice., Results: Data analysis generated three themes: guidance during end of life by healthcare professionals that recognises the autonomy of the family; object used as a trigger to access memories; and storage and preservation of the object as an indication of its sentimental value and use in early bereavement CONCLUSION: Memory making objects such as handprints, locks of hair, or teddy bears received in the adult intensive care unit were valued and utilised during early bereavement by most recipients., Relevance to Clinical Practice: Findings inform practice evidence gaps regarding the family's experiences of memory making received as a bereavement intervention in the adult acute population., Patient or Public Contribution: Participants contributed through sharing their first-hand experiences of receiving memory making in the adult intensive care unit., (© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Clinical Nursing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Problem: The death of a parent is a traumatic experience for adolescents. Studies to ensure post-traumatic growth in adolescents are limited. The aim of this study to evaluate the effect of nursing care based on Watson's Theory of Human Caring on posttraumatic growth in parentally bereaved adolescents., Methods: This study was participatory action research. The study was carried out with four participants through online interviews. In the study, pre- and post-action data were obtained through individual interviews and scales. During the action process, nursing care based on the Theory of Human Caring was provided to the participants individually tracked through the Omaha System. Pre and post-action qualitative data were analyzed using the descriptive analysis method. In quantitative data, scale total and sub-scores were documented., Findings: During the action, it was determined via Omaha System coding that the participants mostly experienced grief and mental health problems. In the pre-action, the participants stated that they experienced various difficulties regarding grief. In the post-action, the participants stated that the meaning of parental loss,its effects on life, and their ability to cope with loss changed and they experienced positive changes. In addition, when the scale scores of the participants' pre- and post-action were compared, it was found that the Mourning Scale scores decreased, and the Post-traumatic Growth Inventory scores increased., Conclusions: The result of this study demonstrate that nursing care based on Theory of Human Caring reduces the grief symptoms and contributes to post-traumatic growth in parentally bereaved adolescents., (© 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

This study explored relational grieving in community by examining how community members grieve with bereaved parents after the death of a child. Three bereaved parent couples and their community members were interviewed together using the qualitative action-project method to examine their shared grieving actions. Data was analyzed through top-down and bottom-up processes to understand the shared intentions of their grieving actions together. The findings of this research elicited thick descriptions of relational grieving at a community level. Four main assertions of how communities grieve with bereaved parents emerged, and include: (a) selflessly offering emotional and practical support, (b) engaging in and honouring vulnerability, (c) holding the complexity of grieving, and (d) fostering remembrance of the deceased child together. The novel descriptions of relational grieving in community contributed to the growing area of relational bereavement research. The theoretical, empirical, and clinical implications of this study are discussed., (© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Objective: The death of a loved one is considered to be the most stressful of all life events. However, the impact of bereavement on quality of life varies between individuals. The aim of our study was to assess emotional functioning (EF), which is a domain of quality of life, of bereaved relatives after the death of their loved one and its associated factors., Method: A prospective, longitudinal, multicenter, observational study on quality of care and quality of life of patients with advanced cancer and their relatives was conducted (eQuiPe). The association between EF of relatives during bereavement and the following factors was investigated: gender, type of relationship, educational level, pre-bereavement emotional and social functioning and global quality of life, social support pre- and during bereavement, anticipatory complicated grief, support of healthcare professionals during bereavement, age of patient and bereaved relative and duration of survival after primary cancer diagnosis., Results: 150 bereaved relatives completed the bereavement questionnaire. In 41% of the bereaved relatives EF was ≤71, indicating clinically relevant low EF. Multivariable logistic regression showed that females experienced more often emotional problems (OR = 2.82). Emotional functioning pre-bereavement (OR = 0.96) and social support during bereavement (OR = 0.97) were associated with low EF during bereavement., Conclusions: Almost half of the bereaved relatives of patients with advanced cancer experienced low EF and this was associated with low EF pre-bereavement and low social support during bereavement. Support for relatives should be initiated before the patient's death. Future research is needed to investigate the impact of such support on relatives' wellbeing during bereavement., (© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Building on an inductive, qualitative study of employees who experienced grief-inducing events such as bereavement or breakup, this paper explores how and with what consequences work becomes a refuge from grief-inducing experiences in people's lives. Using the results of 68 in-depth interviews, I develop an inductive model that shows that grieving employees not only find refuge in work but can also turn their work into a refuge for themselves. In particular, the model explicates how people turn work into a refuge by engaging in job crafting behavior. I also show perceived consequences of this process that occur in both work and life domains. Such consequences tend to be positive, yet those who work significantly harder also experience negative consequences. This paper advances theorizing on grief in organizations and job crafting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Clinicians face personal barriers that impede the provision of bereavement care and require education in hospice care. This study aims to investigate the effects of an educational bereavement program on emotional and cognitive barriers, self-efficacy, and professional quality of life among clinicians in hospice care., Methods: A pretest-posttest design was implemented. A total of 194 clinicians with working experience in hospice care were recruited. The participants underwent a 12-h workshop. The content included lectures, role-play, and group discussion. Emotional and cognitive barriers, self-efficacy, and professional quality of life were measured before and after the program and at 3-month follow-up., Results: After the educational program, negative emotional barriers (F (2, 386) = 17.07, p < 0.001), lack of ability (F (2, 386) = 20.11, p < 0.001), belief in avoidance (F (2, 386) = 7.10, p = 0.001), outcome expectancy (F (2, 386) = 11.32, p < 0.001), and burnout (F (2, 386) = 5.59, p = 0.005) decreased significantly. Self-efficacy (F (2, 386) = 5.37, p = 0.006) and compassion satisfaction (F (2, 386) = 127.99, p < 0.001) increased significantly., Conclusion: The educational program addressed personal barriers to bereavement care. Role-play and group discussion about emotional and cognitive barriers can reduce barriers and improve self-efficacy in clinicians in hospice care., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze interventions for bereaved families and evaluate their effectiveness, with the ultimate goal of supporting evidence-based nursing for bereaved families. Methods: Research trends were identified based on a search of domestic databases from January 2000 to December 2022, and a meta-analysis was conducted on interventions for bereaved families. Forty-five papers were selected, and information was extracted on participants, research design, and interventions. A meta-analysis of seven papers was performed, and the effect size was calculated. Results: Fourteen papers dealt with interventions for middle-aged women who had lost their spouses, 20 used qualitative research methods, and 20 were on art therapy programs. Thirty studies had fewer than 10 participants, and most interventions had 60~120 minutes per session and 9~16 sessions in total. There were seven randomized controlled trials, and all studies included in the quality evaluation showed a low risk of bias. Four papers measured grief as an outcome, and the effect size was -1.9577 (95% CI: -2.9206 to -0.9947), indicating that the treatment significantly decreased grief (P＜0.001). Six papers measured depression as an outcome, and the effect size was -1.6775 (95% CI: -2.1835 to -1.1716), showing that the treatment significantly decreased depression (P＜0.001). Conclusion: Intervention programs for bereaved families were shown to be effective in relieving grief and depression. However, programs should be developed that target middle-aged men who have lost their spouses and children who have lost their parents. Randomized controlled trials should also be conducted on interventions to reduce grief and depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of Social Sciences / Roczniki Nauk Społecznych is the property of Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL & Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawla II and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

"Exploring The Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis" is an interview by Maggie Turp with Sally Weintrobe, the author of the book of this title and a leading psychoanalytic climate change protagonist. The authors of the latter paper have since added a coda in which they sorrowfully acknowledge that their paper's title which includes "Life and Death", referring to the precarious state of psychoanalytical societies in the Ukraine, is no longer a metaphor but has become the reality of their daily lives. I am writing this editorial as people in the United Kingdom and others across the world mourn the death of an exceptional monarch. [Extracted from the article]

The year 2024 marks one decade of scholarship in the new interdisciplinary field of Digital Death, concerning the study of death, dying and grief in the digital age. This paper addresses one key subfield of Digital Death Studies, here termed Digital Grief Studies, which centres on theory, research and design concerning grief in today's digitally saturated contexts. It argues that a classic grand pattern in scholarly treatments of grief—Grief Universalism—with a long, problematic history in Grief and Bereavement Studies, is reappearing in Digital Grief Studies. The Continuing Bonds theory of grief and its application in theory, research and design in Digital Grief Studies is used to demonstrate Grief Universalism in action in our field via hypothetical and fictional examples. This builds toward this paper's big aim: to illustrate what we as an emerging field stand to gain from positioning the established field of Grief and Bereavement Studies as a veritable goldmine of advances—as well as pitfalls, wrong turns, and recurrent problem patterns to be avoided—generated over a hundred years of scholarship concerning human grief. Harnessing this wealth of prior learning and leveraging it toward the furtherance of our field in the coming decade and beyond becomes more crucial as we repel the seemingly perennial magnetism of Grief Universalism, as we operate within an interdisciplinary field vulnerable to Universalism and as yet unaware of its perils, and amid contemporary digital cultures and environments that may preserve and reinforce universalist grief framings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Complicated grief has been identified as a phenomenon in the general population, and there is an increasing body of research investigating complicated grief in people with intellectual disability. The aim of this study is to synthesise this existing knowledge from research published between 1999 and 2022. Methods: A structured systematic review using PRISMA guidelines was conducted, which searched three commonly used databases (Medline, PsycINFO and CINAHL) for research on the topic of bereavement and intellectual disability. The articles identified in this search were screened to identify those that addressed the issue of 'complicated grief', with all abstracts and subsequent full texts reviewed by two researchers. Results: In total, 179 abstracts were initially identified, with 34 articles eligible for full text screening and 18 papers reaching criteria for inclusion. Data relating to the studies' objectives were extracted under the headings of definition, defining principles, signs and symptoms, risk factors and treatments for complicated grief in intellectual disability. Thematic analysis of the extracted data was performed to identify key themes. Conclusions: This review highlights that people with intellectual disability are likely to experience complicated grief reactions and that complicated grief is both underestimated and a clinically significant condition for people with intellectual disability. Future research should work to clarify diagnostic criteria and identify appropriate interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Festivals play an important role in improving death and grief literacy, enabling members of the public to engage with these often-sensitive topics. Good Grief Weston festival was co-designed and delivered with the community in Weston-super-Mare, a coastal town in South-West England with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage but rich community assets. It was held in person over 8 days in May 2023. Objectives: To evaluate the reach and impact of Good Grief Weston festival and gather data to inform future festivals. Design: Mixed methods evaluation (survey and focus groups). Methods: Online and paper surveys assessing participants' characteristics and experiences were administrated during and after the festival. Survey participants who indicated their willingness to participate were invited to attend a focus group. Focus groups were recorded, transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Data were collected by trained community co-researchers. Results: Approximately 3000 people attended the festival. Of 204 completed surveys, 64.5% were from women, age range ⩽15 to ⩾75 years; 88.2% identified as White; 14.9% deaf, disabled/with a chronic condition; 18.9% neurodivergent; 9.0% gay, bisexual or queer. Festival participants were entertained (70.9%), inspired (68.5%), felt part of a like-minded community (54.3%), talked to someone new (49.2%), learnt about grief/bereavement (34.3%), shared or expressed experiences (30.3%) and found out about local support (19.7%). 71.3% reported that they felt more confident talking about grief after attending. Median experience rating was 5 (IQR 0; possible range 1 = poor to 5 = excellent). In free-text comments, participants expressed appreciation for the festival and described benefits in attending. Two focus groups were conducted (n = 8 participants, all women), lasting c.1.5 h. Focus groups added rich descriptions of the festival's value, and data to inform the next festival. Conclusion: Findings suggest festivals of this nature can play a central role in a public health approach. Plain language summary: What was the impact of Good Grief Weston festival? Why was the study done? Previous studies have shown that many people feel unsupported by their community after the death of a loved one. We designed a festival to improve knowledge and support for bereaved people. We did this study to assess how the festival affected the people who attended. What did the researchers do? The team included researchers and people and organisations from the local community. Together, we designed and ran a festival on the topic of death, grief and bereavement in Weston-super-Mare, a coastal town with areas of high deprivation. The festival took place over an eight-day period in May 2023 and included creative, interactive and educational events. The team collected feedback on attendees' experiences of the festival. We did this using online and paper feedback forms, postcards, and focus groups to collect as many opinions as possible. What did the researchers find? We found that a wide range of people attended the festival. Most people who took part in the research rated the festival as 'excellent'. They told us they learnt about grief and bereavement and found out about local support services. Attendees met new people, shared their experiences, and felt that the festival built community spirit. They also made suggestions to improve any future festivals. What do the findings mean? The findings show that in-person festivals can effectively engage the public on the topic of death, grief and bereavement. They can also help develop connections between people and organisations in communities. These connections and learning opportunities may help communities to support their members through bereavement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the generosity of the Alexandra and Martin Symonds Foundation, each year Studies in Gender and Sexuality (SGS) recognizes an outstanding essay that speaks to the intersections of psychoanalysis and cultural theories of gender and sexuality. The editors are delighted to award the 2022 Symonds Prize to Urvashi Agarwal for her paper "An Appeal for Mourning" and to Antonios Poulios for his paper "Chemsex: Reintroducing Sexuality in the Pleasure and Pain of the Infans." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the well-known and often-taught novel The Chrysalids toward a reconsideration of the novel's place within curriculum and the pedagogies it may offer. Framed as a mourning ceremony, a way of revisioning what the novel could mean in the present by saying goodbye to what it has meant in the past, the paper progresses in two major moments. The first looks at the novel in the author's lived experience and discusses personal mourning. The second engages affect theory toward a (re)reading of the material resistances and erasures within one copy of the text. The author concludes by expressing the need for a (re)visioning of what curricular fixtures such as The Chrysalids could mean today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bereavement and mourning are arguably one of the research interests of psychologists, psychoanalysts, and psychiatrists since Freud's publication of Mourning and Melancholia. This paper is a qualitative case study that sought to examine the mourning experience of the participant from childhood until his adolescence. For theoretical foundation, the four tasks of mourning primarily developed by James Worden was utilized for the proper direction of the research inquiry; namely: a.) accepting the reality of death; b.) experiencing the feeling of grief; c.) adjusting and creating new meanings in the post-loss world; and d.) reconfiguring the bond with the lost person. The paper finds that the participant's cognitive attitude, emotional experiences, and personal observations of the environment enable him to overcome actively (in an overlapping manner) the three tasks of mourning. However, the failure to find an enduring connection with his deceased parents is not a result of strong attachment but with the absence of personal belief about the meta-existence of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the links between being lonely and isolated, and increased risks of abuse for adults with care and support needs. Design/methodology/approach: Thematic analysis was used to explore features of loneliness and social isolation present in South Yorkshire Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs) published since 2014. Findings: Ten out of fifteen SARs indicated there had been issues of loneliness and/or social isolation for the person who was the subject of the SAR. Research limitations/implications: The limitations of this paper are that it only included SARs from the South Yorkshire area. Future research should explore national and international perspectives on these issues. Practical implications: Safeguarding Boards should include actions to address loneliness and social isolation as part of prevention strategies and services to develop approaches that can minimise or prevent abuse before it occurs. Practitioners should routinely explore whether the people they work with feel lonely and/or isolated and support people to take appropriate action to mitigate these risks. Originality/value: This paper uses the existing body of literature about loneliness and social isolation to explore the risks of abuse and neglect for adults with care and support needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) was recently added to ICD-11 and DSM-5-TR. Depression and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are frequent comorbidities, but findings regarding comorbid somatoform disorder and personality disorders remain mixed and studies with severely impaired patients are scarce. It was therefore the objective of the present study to examine comorbidities of PGD in a bereaved inpatient psychiatric sample. We assessed N = 101 bereaved inpatients in a psychiatric hospital with clinical interviews and self-report questionnaires. We calculated differences between patients with and without a PGD-diagnosis in number and type of comorbid disorders as well as associations between the severity of PGD and comorbid disorders. On average, patients had 2.53 comorbid psychiatric diagnoses. Patients with and without a PGD-diagnosis did not differ in their number of comorbid diagnoses, and there was no association between number of comorbid diagnoses and PGD-severity. However, patients with PGD, had significantly more comorbid diagnoses belonging to neurotic-, stress-related and somatoform disorders of the ICD-10. Patients with PGD ICD-11 also had significantly higher scores in self-reported depressive, PTSD-, and somatoform symptoms, as well as the negative affectivity personality domain than those without a PGD diagnosis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to provide insights into comorbidities of PGD in a bereaved inpatient psychiatric sample. It highlights the importance of considering PGD symptoms as part of the complaints of bereaved patients to achieve a tailored treatment approach. Future longitudinal studies are needed to unveil relationships between pre-existing mental disorders and PGD., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest We declare that Rita Rosner supplied us with the as-yet-unpublished German version of the Prolonged Grief 13 Revised. André Kerber provided the Dari and Farsi version and Ferhan Dereboy the Turkish version of the Modified Version of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 – Brief Form Plus. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background: Perinatal loss is a traumatic event associated with a high risk of parents experiencing negative psychological outcomes. Despite most parents being in regular contact with midwives and nurses during the perinatal period, there is a lack of evidence which hampers these professionals from using effective psychosocial interventions with parents., Aim: This study aims to synthesise the existing evidence on the types of psychosocial interventions delivered by midwives/nurses for parents with perinatal bereavement, their impacts on bereaved parents' mental health and the experiences of midwives and nurses in delivering psychosocial interventions for parents experiencing perinatal loss., Design: An integrative review of the literature., Methods: Whittemore and Knafl's five-stage integrative review framework guided this review. A systematic literature search of the Medline, PsycINFO, Embase, CINAHL and ASSIA, Cochrane Library and ProQuest databases was conducted from inception to January 2023, with no language or geographical limiters set due to the paucity of research published in this subject area. Two researchers independently screened and reviewed each study's data extraction and methodological quality using the Joanna Briggs Institute and Mixed Method Appraisal Tool. Results were analysed and synthesised using narrative synthesis., Results: A total of 21 studies met the inclusion criteria. From these, we identified nine types of psychosocial interventions for perinatal bereavement that can be delivered by midwives and nurses. The positive impacts of midwife/nurse-led psychosocial interventions on grief, anxiety, depression posttraumatic stress disorder and other psychosocial outcomes amongst parents experiencing perinatal loss have been demonstrated. In addition, we identified the useful components of these interventions and the experiences of midwives and nurses in delivering psychosocial interventions, thereby highlighting barriers such as lack of knowledge and skills, stressful working environments and inadequate emotional support., Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that midwife/nurse-led psychosocial interventions have the potential to improve grief, anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and other psychosocial outcomes for parents experiencing perinatal loss. Thus, future research should consider training, workload, time cost and emotional support for midwives/nurses when developing midwife/nurse-led psychosocial interventions for parents with perinatal loss., Registration Number: CRD42022369032., Tweetable Abstract: Midwife/nurse-led psychosocial interventions have the potential to improve mental health amongst parents experiencing perinatal loss., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The grief, loss and bereavement needs of the families of those living and dying in residential aged care setting is not very well understood. This systematic review examines grief, loss, and bereavement experience of, and interventions relating to, family caregivers of those entering, living and dying in residential aged care. Out of 2023 papers that were identified, 35 met the inclusion criteria which included (n=28) qualitative and (n=7) quantitative intervention studies. The qualitative findings indicated quality of care provided to the resident at the end of their life, and after death care influenced family caregivers' grief reactions. The intervention studies revealed that educational interventions have the potential to lead to some benefits in the context of grief loss and bereavement outcomes. Recognizing the emotional experiences and support needs of families and carers may enhance the understanding of the ageing, caring, dying, grieving pathway for older people and their families., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Prenatal stress is a potential risk factor for cardiovascular disease, but its association with heart failure (HF) is unknown., Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether prenatal stress, defined as maternal bereavement, was associated with HF risk up to middle-age., Methods: This cohort study included 6,758,560 live singleton births from the Danish (1973-2016) and the Swedish (1973-2014) Medical Birth Registers. The authors retrieved information on death of the mothers' close family members (partner, older children, parents, and siblings) and offspring's HF (up to 2016 in Denmark and 2020 in Sweden) from nationwide registers. They estimated HRs and 95% CIs for HF in the offspring according to maternal bereavement., Results: During up to 48 years of follow-up, 4,812 offspring (0.07%) had a diagnosis of HF. Maternal loss of any close family member was not associated with HF in the offspring (adjusted HR: 1.04; 95% CI: 0.88-1.23). However, the most severe forms of bereavement, ie, death of a partner or an older child (adjusted HR: 1.47; 95% CI: 1.06-2.04) and unnatural death of a relative (adjusted HR: 2.77; 95% CI: 1.49-5.17), were associated with increased risks of HF. Congenital heart disease and preterm birth contributed substantially to the association of maternal loss of a partner or older child with HF risk in the offspring., Conclusions: Maternal loss of a partner or older child and loss of a close relative caused by unnatural causes the year before or during pregnancy were associated with increased risk of HF in offspring., Competing Interests: Funding Support and Author Disclosures This study was supported by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (grant number 2015-00837), the Karolinska Institutet’s Research Foundation (grant number 2018-01924, 2018-01547 and 2022-01975), the Swedish Heart and Lung Foundation (grant number 20180306), the China Scholarship Council (grant number 201908300120), the Novo Nordisk Foundation (grant number NNF18OC0052029), the Independent Research Fund Denmark (grant number DFF-6110-00019B, DFF-9039-00010B, and DFF-1030-00012B), and the Nordic Cancer Union (R275-A15770, R278-A15877, and R279-A15931). The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the paper; or decision to submit the paper for publication. The authors have reported that they have no relationships relevant to the contents of this paper to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Even during years of separation Federico was present in Suhrida's heart, with his death she had lost him physically, but the memories remained just beneath the surface, provoking grief at unexpected moments. This essay is primarily an appreciation of the wonderful paper by Suhrida Yadavalli, which is more than your regular academic or clinical paper. Discussion As I noted in the beginning of this essay, I see Suhrida Yadavalli's paper as a contribution to the work of revision of model of mourning. Finally, Suhrida shows how resources such as yoga and meditation can provide the practitioner with the opportunity to confront the inevitably painful and at times, sad world, to respond creatively and perhaps with joy, celebrating its tragic beauty. [Extracted from the article]

The infrequency of sudden deaths in infancy and childhood means that professionals have limited exposure, making it difficult to gain experience and feel confident in their role. This meta-synthesis aims to synthesise qualitative research on the experience of professionals responding to cases of sudden or unexpected death. A systematic literature search was conducted using Academic Search Complete, CINHAL, Embase, psycINFO, PubMed and Web of Science, identifying ten papers for inclusion. Studies were appraised and synthesized using the principles of meta-synthesis. Four superordinate themes were identified: perceptions of role, experience on scene, approaches to coping, and barriers to support. Findings suggest the way responders perceive their role and their experience on scene affect the approach taken to tasks and coping strategies used. The complexity of experience is often not acknowledged by responders or their colleagues. Experiences are compounded by cumulative factors which were expressed by different professional groups and across settings. Several barriers relating to workforce culture within organisations were identified, alongside the implications these have on staff wellbeing and the impact on bereaved families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Absence and loss are part of what it means to be alive. While common, grief is a difficult and complex aspect of the human psyche, often producing affects that mask themselves in different forms such as anxiety, anger, despair, and isolation. Able to bring into form the unnamable affects of our psychic lives (Irwin & Springgay, 2008), arts-based research methods can be viable means to transform the grief into something generative. In this paper, each author describes a project that uses a different arts-based research approach to explore a personal experience with grief. Drawing from wordless narrative research (Horwat, 2018) diffractive ethnography (Gullion, 2018) and walking currere (Irwin, 2006), these projects seek to make sense of ubiquitous expressions of grief, such as complicated grief, political grief, and ecological grief, to show how they not only can generate new understandings but make empathic connections with others suffering from similar allusive psychic afflictions. The paper highlights the implicit generosity that artsbased research engenders in its ability to make tangible the distressing and ambiguous psychic conditions we experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In end-of-life cancer care, 10-20% of bereaved family members experience adverse mental health effects, including prolonged grief disorder. Despite great efforts, evidence-based recommendations to support their grieving process and well-being are often not successfully adopted into routine clinical care. This study identified facilitators and barriers using implementation science methodology., Methods: 81 registered nurses working in cancer care from four hospitals and three home care services in Switzerland assessed their current family support practices in end-of-life care and bereavement care. They then assessed organisational attributes of their institution and their own individual characteristics and skills regarding literature-based factors of potential relevance. Facilitators and barriers to guideline-based family support were determined using fractional logistic regression., Results: Service specialisation in palliative care, a culture that supports change, the availability of family support guidelines, billing/reimbursement of bereavement support services, and individual knowledge of family support and skill were systematically associated with higher adoption of guideline-based family support practices. Lack of privacy with families and insufficient training acted as significant barriers., Conclusions: While several potentially relevant factors have emerged in the literature, certain organisational and individual determinants actually empirically predict guideline-based family support according to nurses in end-of-life cancer care, with some determinants having much stronger implications than others. This provides crucial guidance for focussing quality improvement and implementation efforts through tailored strategies, especially with scarce resources. Furthermore, adoption is lower in bereavement care than in end-of-life care, suggesting a particular need for supportive organisational cultures including specific training and billing/reimbursement options., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: The death of a child may be the most traumatic event a family can experience. Bereavement care for parents is essential for their physical and mental well-being and is a psychosocial standard of care. Childhood mortality is higher in low- or middle-income countries (LMICs); however, little is known regarding bereavement support or interventions for parents in LMICs., Aim: To identify programs, services, initiatives, or interventions offered to bereaved parents in LMICs in hospital settings., Methods: A systematic search was executed following the Preferred Reported Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Articles from LMICs describing interventions, programs, or resources provided to parents after the death of a child (0-18 years old) from any cause were included. Extracted data was categorized by demographics, study design, outcomes, and quality assessment using the McGill Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT)., Results: We retrieved 4428 papers and screened their titles and abstracts, 36 articles were selected for full-text assessment, resulting in nine articles included in the final analysis. Most interventions described support for parents whose child died during the prenatal or neonatal period. The primary interventions included psychological counseling, creating mementos (such as photographs or footprints), and bereavement workshops. Only one paper described a fully established bereavement program for parents. Eight of the papers met high-quality criteria., Discussion: Although bereavement care is crucial for parents whose child has died, only a few studies have documented bereavement interventions in LMICs. More research may help with bereavement program implementation and improved care for bereaved parents in LMICs., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The benefits of expressive writing have been explored since at least the 1980s. The effect of expressive bereavement-related writing has been studied primarily in college students, yielding inconclusive results. Nonetheless, recent effective, integrated psychotherapy protocols, targeting complicated and prolonged grief, include writing assignments, typically in the form of letters. The present paper explores how and why letter writing might be effective and meaningful as a therapeutic tool in the context of grief psychotherapy. It describes how working with letters, addressed to the deceased, might help facilitate self-disclosure, promote exposure to what is avoided, confront unfinished business, encourage continuing bonds, and help achieve a coherent narrative around experiences with the loss. As a therapeutic tool, letter writing has the potential to be helpful to many bereaved people, as it is a simple, effective, and meaningful way to access and work with relevant clinical material in the context of psychotherapy., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

How do we explore the meaning and meaningfulness of a singular event that lives on with us as a lasting impression? What are the initial beginnings and final endings of such living moments? How do we make sense of the significance of events that are so meaningful that they have become a lasting impression. This paper focuses on the phenomenology of such lasting impressions, by drawing on an exemplary anecdote about parental bereavement in newborn intensive care. The phenomenological intent is to determine the depth and magnitude of moments that as healthcare providers we may all too easily miss. As well, the methodological intent is to show how as researchers we can engage in a qualitative manner with empirically obtained experiential material., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The important role of schools in supporting children experiencing bereavement is established, yet less is known about how school curricula include death as part of life and this limits our understanding of the systemic structures that shape children's knowledge and experience of death. To address this gap, this paper discusses an analysis of the Scottish curriculum to explore the extent to which death features in compulsory education for children aged 3 to 15 years. The findings show that whilst death is present across the curricula, certain types of 'knowing' death are promoted, largely situated across religious teaching, which may limit children's engagement with the multiple and complex ways in which death features across individual, social, physical, and relational domains. By integrating the concepts of death systems and death ambivalence, the paper develops new knowledge on the interplay between curricula and sense making around death in children's lives that has practical utility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The untold and unrecognized stories which socioculturally subjugated Americans live become embedded in their psyche-soma, disallowing them the status of full personhood and leading to what Fanny Brewster calls participation mystique. Oppression, trauma and the violence of colonialism, mundane as well as transgenerationally transmitted, spawn terror, fragmentation, despair, and chronic devaluation. Psychoanalysis has partaken and colluded in perpetuating, enacting and remaining silent around what critical race theory delineates as majoritarian stories, which are sovereign societal myths structurally cemented into the American caste system. Accompaniment and witnessing in the consulting room may return voice, power and integration to our societally subordinated patients, whereby they may claim and speak the truths of their personal counterstories. In order to help these patients become whole, this paper extends a bid for psychoanalysis to courageously undertake the personal work of recognizing its own socioculturally generated pain, shame and guilt, along with engaging in a mourning process. Psychic accessibility to witnessing necessarily must include recognition of patients' cultural suffering in tandem with exquisitely experiencing the harsh realities of a society which has organized itself in unconscionable ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Compassionate communities have been put forward as a promising model for community-based support for people facing serious illness, caregiving, dying, and loss. In particular, educational institutions are increasingly acknowledged as potential settings to function as compassionate schools and compassionate workplaces, cultivating acceptance and validation of these experiences beyond the university setting. Objectives: This paper investigates the activities and outcomes of a compassionate community initiative—the Compassionate University program at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. Design: Ripple Effects Mapping was used to guide the focus group and individual interviews conducted with core team members responsible for the development and implementation of the Compassionate University program. Methods: During the focus group and individual interviews, the core team members reflected on the program contributions, with their narratives visually depicted via a hand-drawn mind map. Qualitative data derived from this mind map were entered into XMIND mapping software and fine-tuned based on the focus group and individual interview transcripts and additional project records. Results: Thematic analysis identified four outcome areas that encapsulate the key contributions of the Compassionate University program: (i) increased acceptance and integration of topics such as serious illness, death, and bereavement into existing practices; (ii) broader support for and formalization of compassionate procedures and policies; (iii) emergence of informal networks and internal collaboration on the topics; and (iv) diffusion of compassionate ideas beyond the university. Conclusion: The Compassionate University program facilitates a cultural shift within the university environment, fostering greater acceptance of integrating topics such as serious illness, death, and bereavement into existing practices. Additionally, compassionate procedures and policies for students and staff have been formalized, and core team members are increasingly called upon to provide support on these matters. Notably, Compassionate University stands out as one of the pioneering initiatives in Europe, attracting different educational institutions seeking guidance on cultivating a more compassionate environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractDeath is commonly accepted as the irreversible ending of all biological functions that keep an organism alive. However, understanding death is more complicated than merely comprehending the biological elements of death. Beyond the biological elements of death, it is also critical to understand death’s social, cognitive, and environmental aspects as they influence death awareness, death anxiety, grief and bereavement, and death education. This paper explores the development of mature death concept in children, from early childhood to adolescence. Drawing on a range of developmental and death awareness theoretical frameworks, the authors create a comprehensive model describing the development of mature death concept. The goal of this paper is to propose one theoretical perspective that connects traditional cognitive, socioemotional, and ecological developmental theories with current death awareness theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Many individuals who have been through transition struggle to obtain the necessary medical and psychological support. This paper explores the importance of psychological support for post‐transition individuals. In my experience, there is a subgroup of patients who struggle to come to terms with life post‐transition, particularly the losses involved. They remain stuck in the mourning process. There is a loss of fantasies regarding an ideal transition, and the gap between the hoped‐for transition outcomes and the post‐transition reality can be painfully large. In addition, issues that the transition was meant to address remain in some form for some people, and they may also be haunted by misgivings about how the transition occurred. This paper employs a heavily anonymised composite case to illustrate and elaborate on how these issues emerged and were dealt with in the context of a psychotherapeutic process. Working through issues that led to transition and grievances about perceived and actual failures in care from the past allowed the patient to mourn the loss of her pre‐transition image. The patient was able to come to terms with the reality of her transfer from male to trans‐female and her body and life post‐transition and to shift from a preoccupation with the past to move on with her life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The philosophy of grief has directed little attention to bereavement's impact on perceptual experience. However, misperceptions, hallucinations and other anomalous experiences are strikingly common following the death of a loved one. Such experiences range from misperceiving a stranger to be the deceased, to phantom sights, sounds and smells, to nebulous quasi-sensory experiences of the loved one's presence. This paper draws upon the enactive sensorimotor theory of perception to offer a phenomenologically sensitive and empirically informed account of these experiences. It argues that they can be understood as deriving from disruption to both sensorimotor expectations and perceived opportunities for action, stemming from the upheaval of bereavement. Different facets of the enactive sensorimotor approach can help to explain different types of post-bereavement perceptual experience. Post-bereavement misperceptions can be accounted for through the way that alterations to sensorimotor expectations can result in atypical 'amodal completion', while bereavement hallucinations can be understood as 'appearances' that fail to form part of the usual patterns of sensorimotor contingency. Quasi-sensory experiences of the presence of the deceased can be understood as resulting from changes to perceived affordances. This paper aims to demonstrate the explanatory value of key aspects of the sensorimotor approach by highlighting how they can help to explain the phenomenology of post-bereavement experiences. However, it also illuminates certain areas in which the sensorimotor approach ought to be supplemented, especially if it is to account for tight connections between perception, affect, and intersubjectivity that are salient in grief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores an arts-based research practice of tracing the image of two Salvadoran migrants, Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 2-year-old daughter Valeria, drowned in the Rio Grande in 2019. This practice came about while writing a manuscript about images of children's and immigrant's precarity. Through an embodied, repetitive, and solitary practice of tracing that engages in a postmodern ethics of difference and distance, I consider the co-constructedness of the human condition and how my practice ultimately became an act of relationality and mourning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]