The grief experience during the COVID-19 pandemic across different cultures (original) (raw)
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Mental Illness, 2024
Grief is an individual, family, and social psychological process following the death of a loved one, during which the pain caused by loss follows several stages that will lead to the reorganization and acceptance of the mourning event. In this article, we will examine some elaboration processes that can allow for an analysis of the cultural, social, and religious processes and structures as a consequence of the "grief without a body," namely, the mourning by the relatives who have experienced the loss of a loved one without being able to ritualize the social function of the funeral because of the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Furthermore, some biological and neurological processes that modulate and allow for the mourning process will be synthesized.
Death and Dying: A reflection on how mourning changed during the pandemic
2021
The pandemic scenario created by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome – Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) brought physical and psychological distress among people who found themselves under a situation which unabled most of them to proceed with their usual routine or rites of passing to cope with losses of lifestyle, relatives, and friends.
Phenomenological Reflections on Grief during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2022
This paper addresses how and why social restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic have affected people's experiences of grief. To do so, I adopt a broadly phenomenological approach, one that emphasizes how our experiences, thoughts, and activities are shaped by relations with other people. Drawing on first-person accounts of grief during the pandemic, I identify two principal (and overlapping) themes: (a) deprivation and disruption of interpersonal processes that play important roles in comprehending and adapting to bereavement; (b) disturbance of an experiential world in the context of which loss is more usually recognized and negotiated. The combination, I suggest, can amount to a sort of "grief within grief", involving a sense of stasis consistent with clinical descriptions of prolonged grief disorder.
Filling the void: Grieving and healing during a socially isolating global pandemic
Journal of Social & Personal Relationships, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has altered life dramatically, including grieving practices. This study examines how people grieved death when they were unable to engage in traditional mourning rituals. Participants shared ways their experiences with grief were affected by the pandemic through themes of (1) physical isolation, including feeling together while apart, and, (2) challenges to grief management, like lack of nonverbal communication and feeling delegitimized. Participants also spoke of memorable messages deemed helpful or hurtful, including (1) emphasizing the death over the loss, (2) community, and (3) faith and advice. The findings yield implications regarding the nature of communal coping, flexibility to grieving practices, and disenfranchised grief during a global pandemic.
Bereavement Care, 2010
All groups have a culture. This article is intended to help the bereavement practitioner better understand the support needs of clients from other cultures. It sets out and explains a simple checklist of questions designed to explore cultural practices and attitudes to grief and bereavement. The questions cover the obligations mourners feel towards the dead and towards society; who should be mourned; what should be done with the dead; what should be done with emotions; the inclusion or exclusion of mourners from society, and the role of religion. Practitioners need to be aware of their own cultural assumptions about grief and bereavement, and to observe and listen to what the client is telling them.
A Phenomenological and Clinical Description of Pandemic Grief: How to Adapt Bereavement Services?
Palliative Medicine Reports
Background: Some studies suggest that individuals having lost a loved one during the COVID-19 pandemic report higher levels of grief reactions than people bereaved from natural causes. Little is known about the lived and subjective experience of individuals who lost a loved one under confinement measures. Aim: This research aims to provide a phenomenological description of pandemic grief (PG) that can be useful in clinical settings and bereavement services. Methods: Seventy-six qualitative phenomenological interviews have been conducted with 37 individuals who have lost a loved one during the first wave of the pandemic. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was performed following Tracy's criteria for rigorous qualitative research. Results: The experience of PG comprises clinical manifestations and can be described as ''a type of grief occurring in the context of a pandemic, where applicable public health measures have precedence over end of life and caregiving practices as well as funeral rituals, overshadowing the needs, values, and wishes of the dying individuals and those who grieve them.'' Discussion/Conclusion: This study is the first to provide a phenomenological and experiential understanding of PG. Our phenomenological description can be helpful in clinical settings such as bereavement services within palliative care teams.
Grief: The Epidemic Within an Epidemic
American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, 2020
COVID-19 has not only dramatically changed the way we live, it has also impacted how we die and how we grieve. With more and more Americans dying in ICU settings, away from family, and more funerals being held virtually, the pandemic has seriously curtailed normal expressions of grief and cultural mourning. Given the CDC guidelines for funerals and social distancing, simple human touch is no longer a mitigating force against prolonged grief. So, while one epidemic has a face and a name, we point to a second, more silent yet potentially equally devastating one, unacknowledged grief, and emphasize how policy can be a current therapeutic. We can wait for a vaccine, but we can also act now through thoughtful policymaking that acknowledges this second epidemic.
Mourning Experiences of Families of Dead Infected with COVID-19: A Qualitative Study
Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, 2021
Background: With the outbreak of the Coronavirus, many restrictions are imposed on the processes of a funeral procession, funeral ablution, burial, mass mourning, and the memorial gathering of the family, relatives, friends, and neighbors. Objectives: Given the lack of research on the mourning experiences of families of the dead infected with coronavirus, the present study was to fill this gap in the literature. Methods: In this qualitative study, some semi-structured individual interviews were carried out in the Bu Ali Sina Medical Educational Center, Sari, Iran, with 16 individuals of the families of the dead with coronavirus, who were selected using the purposive sampling method. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, encoded, and categorized, and the data analysis was performed using Graneheim and Lundman’s qualitative approach. Guba and Lincoln’s criteria were also adopted to ensure the data reliability and validity. Results: Four main themes (namely psychological, behavior...