The Effectiveness of a Forgiveness Intervention on Mental Health in Bereaved Parents-A Pilot Study

Hurricane-Force Grief: A Mirror of Fathers' Love

A child's death is a traumatic experience that profoundly impacts parents' psychological, physical, and social wellbeing. The literature describes gender differences in grief response associated with child loss, yet less is known about fathers' grief in comparison that of mothers due to fathers' underrepresentation in bereavement research. There is a need for scholarly exploration to advance understanding of fathers' grief. This article presents selected findings on fathers' grief responses that emerged from a larger qualitative study, which aimed to describe fathers' lived experience of bereavement after a child's death. Profound grief emerged as one essential theme of fathers' bereavement experience. Participants described the meaning of their grief, their multidimensional grief responses, their grief triggers, and their grief intensity. Findings deepen understanding of fathers' grief associated with child loss and advance the body of parental bereavement literature.

A Review of Parental Bereavement Interventions: Implications for Clinical Practice, Research, and Policy

The untimely death of a child is an incredibly traumatic experience for parents and their loved ones. It uproots every aspect of their life, leading the bereaved parents to be far more likely to have poorer physical and mental health outcomes. This traumatic form of bereavement should have comprehensive grief-focused, high-quality interventions available for parents and extended family members. The purpose of this rapid review was to explore and describe the bereavement interventions available for parents and family that have been published within the past 5 years. Records identified 123 full-text articles that were reviewed, and 14 of those were included for data extraction and synthesis, using Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group with the addition of keyword searches. The 14 articles were analyzed by evaluating description of bereaved parents, accessibility of interventions, who delivered interventions, and the type and delivery time of interventions. Four types of interventions were identified, including Web-based, community-based, hospital-based, and psychotherapy interventions. This rapid review has implications for clinical practice, research, and health care policy that can increase the availability of support and quality of interventions for bereaved parents and family members.

The loss of a child, bereavement and the search for meaning: A systematic review of the most recent parental interventions

The loss of a child is considered one of the most tragic experiences that parents can go through. The present systematic review aims to compile the most recently published interventions in bereavement support for these parents, being particularly interested in those made from a meaning-centered approach. The search for the units of analysis was guided by the standards of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) Statement and was entered in Web of Science, Scopus and EBSCO, obtaining a total of 485 papers of which 21 have been included in this article. The results found are heterogeneous in terms of the type of intervention used and results, but they all seem to have something in common: the lack of research and reliable interventions that exist for this population. With this systematic review we intend to achieve a better understanding of these parents' needs and to highlight the enormous work that still remains ahead in order to make their bereavement experience a little less devastating.