Bereavement and Post-Traumatic Growth

Abstract

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the nature of relationship between bereavement and post-traumatic growth from the conceptual viewpoint of organismic valuing process theory, and the role of religious coping, cognitive processes and social support in this relationship. In addition, group differences on bereavement and Post-traumatic growth were explored based on circumstantial factors (nature of death and time since death) and demographic characteristics of the participants and the deceased including gender, age, family system, relationship status, ethnicity, education level and occupation. The research was completed in two independent studies i.e. Study-I and Study-II. The study-I was related to the adaptation and validation of instruments in local context and exploring the initial trends in the data whereas, study-II was conducted to test the stated hypotheses. The study was conducted on a sample of bereaved parents and spouses who were taken from Baluchistan province of Pakistan. Participants were included in the study only if not more than 24 months had passed since the death of their child or spouse. Adapted Urdu versions of Core Bereavement Items (Burnett et al., 1997), Brief-RCOPE (Pargament et al., 1998), Integration of Stressful Life Events (Holland et al, 2010), Social Support Questionnaire6 (Sarason et al, 1987), and Post-traumatic Growth Inventory-Short Form (Cann et al., 2010) along with a demographic sheet were used to collect the required data. Translation process was carried out through using procedure of Back-translation design. Results of study-I provided sufficient evidence for the psychometric properties of the translated scales. Relationship between the study variables showed that bereavement was inversely correlated with accommodation, assimilation and post-traumatic growth; whereas positively viii correlated with positive religious coping, negative religious coping and satisfaction with social support. Positive religious coping, accommodation, assimilation and satisfaction with social support were positively correlated with post-traumatic growth; whereas negative religious coping was negatively correlated with post-traumatic growth. The question of indirect relationship between bereavement and post-traumatic growth was addressed by running parallel multi-mediator analyses (five mediators) through Macro Process on SPSS (22 Version). Results showed that accommodation significantly mediated the bereavement and post-traumatic growth relationship; whereas positive and negative religious coping, assimilation and satisfaction with social support did not mediate this relationship in the multiple mediator design. Results of the analyses through independent t-test and One-Way ANOVA showed that death of son and husband resulted in comparatively more intense bereavement experience; Sudden and violent deaths as compared to expected deaths led to more intense bereavement experience; however no significant difference was observed in post-traumatic growth on the basis of nature of the death; no significant gender differences were found on satisfaction with social support. Male gender reported higher post-traumatic growth; and participants living in nuclear family reported more intense bereavement experience; whereas participants living in joint family reported higher post-traumatic growth; no significant difference was observed in bereavement experience intensity and post-traumatic growth between different age groups; and no significant difference in study variables was observed between various ethnic communities except for Hazara ethnic community who reported significantly more intense bereavement experience as compared to other ethnic communities in Baluchistan. Significant differences were observed on bereavement, cognitive ix processes and post- traumatic growth in relation to education level and occupation of the participants. Limitations of the present study are also highlighted and suggestions for future research are mentioned.