Distal sibling grief: Exploring emotional affect and salience of listener behaviors in stories of sibling death

Abstract

Communicated Narrative Sense-Making (CNSM) theory was utilized to consider the characteristics of stories of sibling death 5 years or more after the loss and to investigate the association between sharing these stories and a bereaved sibling's well-being. Analysis of 174 narratives revealed that a neutral affective tone was predominant in storytelling and that participant overall mood emerged as a more significant predictor of well-being than the affective content of the story. Cause of death, age at death, short- and long-term impacts, and continuing bonds with sibling were the main themes included in sibling death stories, with an emphasis on factual content. The participants' reported salience of six CNSM perspective-taking behaviors of listeners while telling the death story to others suggests that while all six behaviors were important to their decision to share their story, being offered the freedom to tell the story and having positive, attentive behaviors from listeners were the most salient. Based on these findings, contributions to CNSM translational interventions for bereaved siblings are discussed.