Influence of Perceived Preventability of the Death and Emotional Closeness to the Deceased: A Test of Bugen's Model

Abstract

This study tested Bugen's (1977Bugen's ( , 1979 model of human grief with data from 435 adults, ages eighteen to eighty-eight years old, who had attended the funeral of a family member or close friend in the past two years. The model's two factors, Emotional Closeness to the deceased and Perceived Preventability of the death, were strong predictors of grief and bereavement adjustment. To test the robustness of this model, these two factors were then used to predict aspects of the funeral. Emotional Closeness to the deceased, but not Perceived Preventability of the death, provided some prediction of Meaningfulness of the funeral and Participation in the funeral rituals.Relative to the considerable work done on the psychological aspects of death and dying (cf.

College Student Adjustment and Coping

“…Students indicated their year in school as first year (34.5%), sophomore (25.3%), junior (15.3%), or senior (22.7%; n ¼ 1 did not respond). The sample consisted of 84 students (37%) who experienced a death loss within the previous 2 years (i.e., bereaved group) and 141 students (63%) who had not experienced a death loss (i.e., nonbereaved group) within the previous 2-year period (see Currier, Holland, & Neimeyer, 2006;Guarnaccia, Hayslip, & Landry, 1999 for use of similar time frame). The bereaved and nonbereaved groups did not differ with regard to age, gender, or race/ethnicity.…”

A Study Of The Distribution Of Sample Coefficient Alpha With The Hopkins Symptom Checklist: Bootstrap Versus Asymptotics

“…The sample used here is from a previously reported study of coping with bereavement (Guarnaccia & Hayslip, 1998;Guarnaccia, Hayslip, & Landry, 1999;Hayslip, Ragow-O'Brien, & Guarnaccia, 1999). In this study, adults who had attended a funeral of a relative or a close friend within approximately the past 2 years were contacted through a variety of sources and asked to volunteer.…”

“…This data set was chosen as an appropriate example of psychological research using a commonly used Likert-type scale, the HSCL, with participants whose scores are both elevated above those of the general population and have a nonnormal distribution. These distributional characteristics likely reflect variations in such psychological factors as emotional closeness to the deceased person, time since the death, and differential bereavement coping (Guarnaccia et al, 1999;Hayslip et al, 1999).…”