Four hundred and thirty-eight adults aged eighteen to eighty-eight ( M age = 35) who had lost a close friend or family member within the last two years completed questionnaires to ascertain the relationship of cause of death to attitudes toward the funeral and bereavement adjustment. While deaths that were expected were associated with more adaptive bereavement adjustment, cause of death was independent of participation in prefuneral, funeral, and postfuneral rituals, as well as attitudes toward the funeral. Expected deaths of persons to whom bereaved persons felt emotionally close were linked to more adaptive bereavement adjustment, greater positive meaning attributed to the funeral, and somewhat greater postfuneral participation. Such effects were minimized when data for deceased persons to whom the bereaved felt less close were examined. When specific causes of death were examined, those losing a loved one to either murder/suicide or accident fared worse regarding bereavement adjustment, and had less funeral participation. Regarding bereavement adjustment, this was especially the case when the deaths of close family were considered, except that such persons had greater funeral participation. Neither length of time since bereavement nor age interacted with cause of death to affect funeral attitudes or bereavement adjustment. While these data partially support the hypothesis that the impact of funerals is relative to the nature of loss, they also suggest that cause of death interacts with closeness to the deceased in affecting bereavement adjustment.
One hundred and twenty-three bereaved individuals ( M age=36) whose loved ones had died of a terminal illness within the last year completed a series of self-report measures to ascertain the impact of hospice care use on funeral participation and bereavement adjustment. As a general rule, hospice users ( n=57) reported better post-death adjustment and participated more fully in the funeral than did non-hospice users ( n=66). Such effects for the most part were intensified when a loved one was perceived as either having suffered or having been in pain prior to death. Extent of hospice use did not affect bereavement adjustment or funeral participation. These data speak to the psychological benefits of hospice use on the post-death adjustment of bereaved individuals, particularly in cases where the death is a painful one.
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