BACKGROUND: How individuals are informed of the traumatic loss of a loved one can influence their grieving process and quality of life.
OBJECTIVE: This qualitative study aimed to explore, through thematic analysis, how life stages might influence the experience and feelings of those who have received communication of a traumatic death from police officers or healthcare professionals.
METHOD: Recruited through social networks and word of mouth, 30 people participated in the study. Subjects were divided into three groups according to age (Group 1: ten participants aged between 20 and 35 years; Group 2: ten participants aged between 45 and 55 years; and Group 3: ten participants aged 60 and over). Participants completed an ad hoc questionnaire online. Atlas.ti software 8 was used to perform thematic analysis.
RESULTS: The three age groups had the following four key themes in common: (a) emotional reactions; (b) subjective valuation of the notification; (c) support; and (d) needs. Subtle differences emerged between age groups; yet the quality of the reactions and main themes did not vary greatly between the groups considered.
CONCLUSIONS: The communication of an unexpected and violent death seems to provoke rather similar effects in survivors of different life stages. A few differences were noted in sub-themes (increased need for professional training in younger recipients; absence of suicidal ideation in older adults); perhaps quantitative designs could provide further details in future investigations.
Language: en
Keywords
Humans; Adult; Aged; Female; Male; Middle Aged; suicide; Death; Young Adult; Surveys and Questionnaires; Quality of Life; Grief; survivors; Violence/psychology; *Qualitative Research; age groups; death communication; Health Personnel/psychology; notification of death; Police/psychology; road accident; traumatic death