Grief in daily life of children after death or divorce
Method Stream: Other
ECs: Both 14 and 23 EC thesis possible
Description:
Approximately 140 million children worldwide face the death of a parent and even more experience the loss of a parent through divorce. Prolonged grief disorder is one of the most prevalent psychiatric disorders after the death of a loved one. Prolonged grief reactions may also arise after divorce. One in ten bereaved children is at risk of prolonged grief. Similar prolonged grief disorder rates have been found in bereaved adults.
Prolonged grief disorder has only recently been recognized as a serious mental disorder in the two most commonly used classification systems in psychiatry. Prolonged grief entered the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) in 2022 and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) in 2018. It is characterized by persistent separation distress (e.g., “Preoccupation with thoughts or memories of the person who you have lost”) and cognitive, behavioral, and emotion symptoms (e.g., “Intense loneliness as a result of the loss”). Symptoms of prolonged grief are distinct from posttraumatic stress and depression symptoms. Prolonged grief is diagnosable in children 6 months post-loss when symptoms are so intense that they disrupt functioning in daily life. Without treatment, prolonged grief severity remains relatively stable and therefore may continue to negatively impact children’s functioning.
Research on (mechanisms of) prolonged grief has mainly focused on adult populations. In comparison, there is limited research focusing on bereaved children (age <18). Grief after loss takes place in everyday life. To fully understand grief in daily life, fine-grained research methods are needed. Current grief research is, however, dominated by retrospectively recalling experiences, e.g., during the past week. This is prone to recall bias and lacks the ability to study how grief unfolds in daily life. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA), also called experience sampling, is a fine-gained longitudinal data-collection method and an ecologically valid way to measure prolonged grief in daily life. In EMA-research, people are asked to complete a brief set of questions multiple times per day usually on their phone.
Recent work shows that EMA is acceptable and feasible to study the fluctuating and context-dependent nature of prolonged grief in adults. Yet it remains to be examined to what extent EMA is acceptable and feasible to study grief in daily life of children. The main aim of this project is to examine the acceptability and feasibility of EMA to study grief after death or divorce in children aged 12-20 years.
This aim can be achieved by asking children who experienced the death or divorce of a parent to complete a brief set of questions multiple times per day on their phone for a couple of days. Before doing this, relevant questions to assess grief in daily life can be co-developed together with children, so these questions are tailored to the unique grief experience of children. Moreover, after completing these items on their phone using EMA, children are asked what they think about participating in this type of research. For an example of what this type of research (and thus your master thesis) could look like please see: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2022.152351
Two students can work on this project together. Students will among others help with recruiting Dutch children aged 12-20 years who experienced grief after death or divorce. It is possible to participate in data-collection via interviews. Projects that involve data-collection via interviews are only applicable for 23 EC thesis. Interviews and surveys are in Dutch, so fluency in Dutch language is necessary. This results in qualitative and quantitative data, so depending on your wishes you can focus your thesis on type of data you prefer. It is also possible to do a systematic literature review. Please note that a decision regarding type of thesis (longitudinal intensive methods, quantitative research with one or two measurement occasions, qualitative research or literature review) needs to be made before May 8 after consultation with the supervisor in order to start in the correct stream for the Advance Research Methods course.
References
Klurfeld, Z. B., Buqo, T., Sanderson, W. C., & Ward-Ciesielski, E. F. (2020). Comparing the nature of grief and growth in bereaved, divorced, and unemployed individuals. Journal of Affective Disorders, 274, 1126–1133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.06.008
Lenferink, L. I. M., van Eersel, J. H. W., & Franzen, M. (2022). Is it acceptable and feasible to measure prolonged grief disorder symptoms in daily life using experience sampling methodology? Comprehensive psychiatry, 119, 152351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2022.152351
Lundorff M, Holmgren H, Zachariae R, Farver-Vestergaard I, O'Connor M. (2017). Prevalence of prolonged grief disorder in adult bereavement: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Affect Disord, 212, 138-149. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2017.01.030.
Melhem, N. M., Porta, G., Shamseddeen, W., Walker Payne, M., & Brent, D. A. (2011). Grief in children and adolescents bereaved by sudden parental death. Archives of general psychiatry, 68(9), 911–919. https://doi.org/10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.101