CONTACT - Volume 8, Number 1
Research Abstract
The Lived Experience of Long Term Parental Bereavement

Dr. Carol Smith , Assistant Professor of Nursing, recently earned a doctorate from Case Western Reserve University. This abstract describes her dissertation.

The death of a child is one of the most tragic events that can enter a family's life. The event is said to bring life long changes to the bereaved parents, but little has been documented in a scientific, rigorous manner. Although the process of bereavement in general has been studied at various times, long term parental bereavement research has been absent from the literature.

This study explored the lived experience of long term parental bereavement utilizing hermeneutic phenomenology. A convenience sample of 12 bereaved parents, whose children died 4 to 20 years prior, was interviewed and audiotaped. The tapes were transcribed verbatim and analyzed for repeated themes. The data analysis procedure used was the Giorgi method. When all 12 transcripts were compared, a list of 16 common themes was formed. From the list of themes emerged a group of dimensions that described the lived experience of long term parental bereavement. The dimensions were Chronic Sorrow, Moving On, Support Network, Parental Guilt, After Death Contacts, and Telling the Story. Standards of rigor were maintained by peer debriefing, member checking, and audit by an independent reviewer. The implications for nursing are many.

The analysis of the qualitative data revealed that parental grief continues without end. In practice, incorporating supportive measures allows the parents to express their grief in a safe, positive, and nonjudgmental atmosphere and permit the parents to talk openly about their deceased child. Nurses can provide referrals to appropriate community support services. Recommendations for future nursing research, including minority parental bereavement experiences, are also addressed.