Death StudiesPub Date : 2025-05-13DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2025.2502985
Laura Ley Greaves, Lindy Willmott, Rachel Feeney, Ben P White
{"title":"Preparing for voluntary assisted dying: A qualitative analysis of practitioners' perceptions of voluntary assisted dying before the law begins in Queensland, Australia.","authors":"Laura Ley Greaves, Lindy Willmott, Rachel Feeney, Ben P White","doi":"10.1080/07481187.2025.2502985","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2502985","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Legalization of voluntary assisted dying (VAD), is increasingly being considered in many countries worldwide. Some regimes have a designated implementation period, after the law has passed but before it comes into force, to develop processes and systems required for VAD to be integrated within existing healthcare. This study is the first qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with 31 medical practitioners holding no in-principle objection to VAD, who may go on to provide VAD, during an implementation phase. It looks to understand perspectives on implementation and expectations of participating in VAD. Thematic analysis conceptualized four major themes: a new practice with many unknowns, perspectives on implementation, practicalities of the law, and clinical considerations. Findings highlight appropriate consideration is needed during the implementation phase to prepare the workforce in a sustainable way. Involvement of palliative care physicians in education and support for those involved in all end-of-life care would also be beneficial.</p>","PeriodicalId":11041,"journal":{"name":"Death Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143968062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Death StudiesPub Date : 2025-04-30DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2025.2491574
Diana D van Bergen, Milou Looijmans, Elias Balt, Sanne Pa Rasing, Renske Gilissen, Daan Hm Creemers, Saskia Merelle
{"title":"'I feel so alone… I am nobody, and I am nothing'. A psychosocial autopsy study on adolescent girls' suicide, with a focus on sexual orientation.","authors":"Diana D van Bergen, Milou Looijmans, Elias Balt, Sanne Pa Rasing, Renske Gilissen, Daan Hm Creemers, Saskia Merelle","doi":"10.1080/07481187.2025.2491574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2491574","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study aimed to understand suicide among LGB or Questioning (LGBQ) and heterosexual adolescent girls in the Netherlands and to examine the role of their sexual orientation to their suicide following the <i>sexual minority stress framework</i>. Narrative interviews with 35 survivors of 18 female adolescents' suicide cases revealed approximately half of the cases as LGBQ. Thematic analyses of informants perspectives demonstrated three life trajectories: (1) Trauma and stressors in childhood impacting mental health. (2) Onset of decreased mental health in adolescence without major external stressors. (3) Unexpected suicide in girls seemingly doing well. Regarding the minority stress framework, most LGBQ girls had faced some form of sexual minority stressors (LGB bullying, non-affirmation) from peers or family. Nevertheless, the minority stress the girls had been confronted with, had often been preceded by, or interlinked with other trauma, stressful life events, that is, general bullying, the experience of sexual abuse and family problems.</p>","PeriodicalId":11041,"journal":{"name":"Death Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-16"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143980870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Death StudiesPub Date : 2025-04-21DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2025.2491572
Francisco Javier Olivas-González, María Nieves Pérez-Marfil, Manuel Fernández-Alcántara, Francisco Cruz-Quintana
{"title":"The impact of heteropatriarchy and support on grief in sexual minorities: A qualitative study.","authors":"Francisco Javier Olivas-González, María Nieves Pérez-Marfil, Manuel Fernández-Alcántara, Francisco Cruz-Quintana","doi":"10.1080/07481187.2025.2491572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2491572","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social support is a crucial element in the grieving process. However, in some social groups, such support may be absent or available only in a limited way. This would be the case for sexual minorities, who face prejudice, stigma, and rejection. The aim of this qualitative study is to explore the particularities of grief experienced by sexual minorities following the loss of a partner, using a Spanish sample. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with all participants. Qualitative results from 23 homosexual and bisexual people highlight the effects of heteropatriarchy on sexual minorities: gay men experience privileged status with visible partner relationships and widespread social support during grief, whereas lesbian women experience invisible relationships and instances of family and social rejection, leading to disenfranchized grief.</p>","PeriodicalId":11041,"journal":{"name":"Death Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-12"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143958764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Death StudiesPub Date : 2025-04-18DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2025.2489572
Asher D Colombo
{"title":"Educating death. Children of five generations confronting dead and funerals.","authors":"Asher D Colombo","doi":"10.1080/07481187.2025.2489572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2489572","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A growing strand of studies suggests that in contemporary societies adults have long been engaged in a process of protecting children from death and the experiences surrounding it. This raises questions about the level of protection children are subjected to. Based on a survey of 2000 Italians, the article analyses people born between 1929 and 2013 about two childhood experiences: exposure to the sight of a corpse and attendance at a funeral. Three main findings emerge. Firstly, the proportion of who saw a dead body or attended a funeral as children is far from negligible. Secondly, the analysis of the two experiences considered over the course of a century casts doubt on the hypothesis of linear growth of protection and shows, instead, a curvilinear trend. Finally, the analysis shows the recent emergence, in some social settlements, of resistance to the overprotection of children from the experiences examined.</p>","PeriodicalId":11041,"journal":{"name":"Death Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143984237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Biopsychosocial impacts of mother loss on daughters in Australia: Cross-sectional study.","authors":"Jessica Bowring, Elesha Parigi, Gery Karantzas, Susan Chesterman, Colette Naude, Suiyin Cheah, Subhadra Evans, David Skvarc, Danielle Snelling, Eloise Baker, Antonina Mikocka-Walus","doi":"10.1080/07481187.2025.2491571","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2491571","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We aimed to describe the biopsychosocial impacts of a mother's death at any stage in life on adult daughters in Australia. A total of 2735 mother-bereaved daughters completed an online survey about their experiences of mother loss and its impacts. We assessed several biopsychosocial outcomes, including symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), prolonged grief disorder (PGD), quality of life (QoL), sleep disturbance, and pain. Using multiple regressions, we examined how mother and daughter's age at the time of death, daughter's levels of maternal and general attachment anxiety and avoidance, daughter's dependence on their mother prior to their death, daughter's provision of personal care to their mother prior to their death, and daughter's expectation of their mother's death were associated with biopsychosocial outcomes. Older, anxiously attached, dependent daughters who provided care and faced unexpected loss experienced poorer outcomes. General attachment anxiety was the strongest and most consistent predictor.</p>","PeriodicalId":11041,"journal":{"name":"Death Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-9"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143978295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Death StudiesPub Date : 2025-04-17DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2025.2491584
Zhiqi Yi, Shuo Xu, Peiyuan Zhang
{"title":"Attitudes toward end-of-life care and preferred death locations: A latent profile analysis.","authors":"Zhiqi Yi, Shuo Xu, Peiyuan Zhang","doi":"10.1080/07481187.2025.2491584","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2491584","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Older adults' attitudes toward end-of-life (EOL) care significantly affect its utilization. This study explored latent profiles of EOL care attitudes, their characteristics, and relations to prefer death locations among 498 Chinese community-dwelling adults aged 50 and above. Exploratory factor analysis identified four distinct dimensions of EOL care attitudes: \"life reflection and legacy,\" \"physical comfort and pain management,\" \"autonomy and decision-making,\" and \"spiritual and religious comfort.\" Latent profile analysis revealed four latent profiles: \"holistic preparers\" (40.04%), \"physical comfort-focused individuals\" (36.11%), \"passive respondents\" (14.66%), and \"autonomy and spiritual-comfort seekers\" (9.19%). Factors such as religious belief, education, chronic disease, exposure to cancer death, and caregiving experience predicted latent profile membership. Participants in different latent profiles showed significant differences in preferred death locations, with home and hospital being the most favored places. These findings highlight the diverse attitudes and preferences toward EOL care, providing insights for individualized EOL care planning and resource allocation.</p>","PeriodicalId":11041,"journal":{"name":"Death Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143983602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Death StudiesPub Date : 2025-04-16DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2025.2487770
Charles A Corr, Kenneth J Doka
{"title":"Theories and concepts about society, dying, and bereavement commonly discussed in education about death, dying, and bereavement.","authors":"Charles A Corr, Kenneth J Doka","doi":"10.1080/07481187.2025.2487770","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2487770","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article describes and offers some evaluations of fifteen prominent theories and concepts in the field of death, dying, and bereavement. These theories and concepts range from claims about \"death-denying societies\" and the concept of \"societal death systems\" to theories about coping with dying and coping with loss, grief, and bereavement. Also examined are the concept of disenfranchised grief and theories about contrasting grief styles. Because each of these theories and concepts is often discussed in education about death, dying, and bereavement, it is important that instructors and students understand both their strengths and limitations. The goal of this analysis is twofold: (1) To help guide educators as they explain these theories and concepts to their students and readers, and (2) To assist educators in commenting on the soundness and usefulness of these theoretical frameworks. Five specific lessons for educators are also set forth in the course of this discussion.</p>","PeriodicalId":11041,"journal":{"name":"Death Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143976650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Death StudiesPub Date : 2025-04-15DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2025.2469137
Michael Rihs, Flurina L Brodwolf, Fred W Mast
{"title":"Apocalypse now: Thoughts about human extinction under mortality salience increase death-thought accessibility but reduce worldview defense.","authors":"Michael Rihs, Flurina L Brodwolf, Fred W Mast","doi":"10.1080/07481187.2025.2469137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2469137","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Various threats (e.g., climate change, nuclear wars, pandemics) pose the risk of human extinction. This represents a threat to human cultures and should result in effects similar to mortality salience (MS). At the same time, thoughts about human extinction reduce the belief in a long-lasting culture. This conflicts with the striving for symbolic immortality as a strategy to buffer MS. To investigate how thoughts about human extinction affect terror management, participants were presented with either an apocalyptic, destructive, or neutral video in combination with a manipulation of MS. Participants reported highest death-thought accessibility when watching the apocalyptic video under MS. However, worldview defense was decreased after watching the apocalyptic video under MS. These findings point to a dissociation between proximal and distal defense mechanisms: Thoughts about human extinction increase proximal defenses under MS, but they undermine the strive for symbolic immortality by worldview defense as distal defenses.</p>","PeriodicalId":11041,"journal":{"name":"Death Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-12"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143986005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Death StudiesPub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2025.2487787
Carol Tishelman, Sofía Weiss Goitiandía, Johanna L Degen, Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage, Anna-Clara Rullander, Max Kleijberg
{"title":"Care, dying, death, and loss in children's drawings from the Covid-19 pandemic in Sweden.","authors":"Carol Tishelman, Sofía Weiss Goitiandía, Johanna L Degen, Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage, Anna-Clara Rullander, Max Kleijberg","doi":"10.1080/07481187.2025.2487787","DOIUrl":"10.1080/07481187.2025.2487787","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Most studies gather data on children's Covid-19 experiences from proxy adults rather than from children. We explore depictions of end-of-life issues in drawings created by children in Sweden about their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic, generated in response to an open invitation to schools, teachers, culture centers, etc. from a public archive of children's art. A transdisciplinary team inductively analyzed 172 drawings containing images of care, dying, death and loss, finding qualitatively different portrayals differentiated by focus on (re)actors versus victims in the pandemic. The virus was often drawn as an aggressive, active agent, while humans, including professionals, appeared reactive and at a loss. The largest group of victims were without identity, although some children depicted themselves as victims. These children illustrate Covid-19-related questions, concerns, and fears about the end of life, reflecting \"epistemological uncertainty\" resulting from the pandemic. This uncertainty should be addressed, for example by trustworthy support in making sense of surrounding world, and by pro-active death educational approaches for both children and the adults who are in contact with them.</p>","PeriodicalId":11041,"journal":{"name":"Death Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-26"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143810687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}