Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many changes to the lives of children and young... more Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many changes to the lives of children and young people. Our aim is to explore the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of children and young people (ages 5-21). Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines was used to report the findings of this rapid review. Results: Children and young people are potentially very vulnerable to the emotional impact of traumatic events that disrupt their daily lives. Key areas of concern include: Death Anxiety and Fear of Infection; lack of social interaction and loss of routine. Conclusions: Despite some early and responsive studies, the evidence base for pandemic impact on children and young people is very limited. Such evidence is urgently needed if adequate and responsive services, that can mitigate the long-term impact of the pandemic for children and young people can be established.
To report on research conducted on men's experiences of grief and loss following stillbirth and n... more To report on research conducted on men's experiences of grief and loss following stillbirth and neonatal death in high-income, Western countries. Design: This review was guided by the following research questions: 1. The impact of perinatal death for men 2. The meaning of the loss for a father's sense of identity 3. The extent to which men were able to express grief while supporting their partners and, 4. how men's experience of grief was mediated by the support and care received by health professionals. Data sources: We searched the following databases: Medline; PsychINFO; CINAHL to identify relevant articles published from the year 20 0 0 onwards. The searches were run between 1/04/2018 and 8/4/2018. Review methods: A scoping review was conducted of nursing, psychological, medical and social science databases using these key words: fathers' grief, men's grief, perinatal loss and death, stillbirth and neonatal death. Results: Studies indicated that men reported less intense and enduring levels of psychological outcomes than women but were more likely to engage in avoidance and coping behaviours such as increased alcohol consumption. Men felt that their role was primarily as a 'supportive partner' and that they were overlooked by health professionals. Conclusions: Further research is needed on men's experience of grief following perinatal death, especially on their physical and mental well-being. Impact: This review addressed the problem of the lack of knowledge around paternal needs following perinatal death and highlighted areas which researchers could usefully investigate with the eventual aim of improving care for fathers.
Background: Undergraduate nursing students spend a significant amount of time in clinical placeme... more Background: Undergraduate nursing students spend a significant amount of time in clinical placements where they are involved in care at the end of a person's life and care after death. While their role is to provide compassionate care, some students feel wholly unprepared. Aims: The aim of this qualitative study was to explore student nurses' experiences of care in death, dying and post death care, and to explore how students can be better prepared to provide such care. Methods: This is a qualitative descriptive study that is concerned with the subjective reality of participant's experiences. Findings: Six themes were developed from the analysis: first encounters with death and dying; preparedness; mentoring and support received; the caring role; striving to cope; working with families and working through COVID-19. Conclusion: Students described their experience of placements in end-of-life care as challenging, yet were also able to adopt ways to develop as compassionate practitioners.
The aim of this study was to explore children's experience and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic... more The aim of this study was to explore children's experience and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic through their illustrations and short narrations. During October 2020 and January 2021 data was collected from thirteen children aged 9-10 years old in a primary school in the NorthWest of England. Children were asked to draw their thoughts and feelings about the pandemic and to write a short narration to accompany the drawing. Thematic analysis of data revealed that during the pandemic children at this age have an understanding of death, experience death anxiety and are able to use creative expression to facilitate meaning of the impact of lockdown on their lives such as feeling isolated, lonely, sad and bored. Creative expression also facilitated adaptive coping mechanisms derived from being able to spend more time with family. The data on primary school children is part of a larger study which involved surveys and interviews with children aged 12-16 years in secondary schools.
Implications for practice • Findings confirm the significant impact of Covid-19 on the mental hea... more Implications for practice • Findings confirm the significant impact of Covid-19 on the mental health of children and young people. • Findings highlight trust, and roles and relationships with parents and teachers. • Timely and accessible information should supplement the provision of mental health services to support children and young people experiencing death anxiety.
Background The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many changes to the lives of children and young ... more Background The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many changes to the lives of children and young people. Our aim is to explore the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of children and young people (ages 5–21). Methods The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines was used to report the findings of this rapid review. Results Children and young people are potentially very vulnerable to the emotional impact of traumatic events that disrupt their daily lives. Key areas of concern include: Death Anxiety and Fear of Infection; lack of social interaction and loss of routine. Conclusions Despite some early and responsive studies, the evidence base for pandemic impact on children and young people is very limited. Such evidence is urgently needed if adequate and responsive services, that can mitigate the long-term impact of the pandemic for children and young people can be established.
In the UK is estimated at around 800,000 people, with 90, 000 people with dementia in Scotland. I... more In the UK is estimated at around 800,000 people, with 90, 000 people with dementia in Scotland. It’s forecast that by 2025, one in three people over the age of 60 will have dementia when they die. It is not always recognised that dementia is a progressive and life-limiting illness – perhaps because you can die of other things for example cardiovascular disease. However, as a result dementia hasn’t received the same level of attention or professional support as other life-limiting illnesses e.g. cancer. In response, a lot of policies – like the Scottish palliative care strategy want to get us talking about death and dying – but we need to get dementia included in those conversations. Dementia involves complex physical and psychological needs. Symptoms, rate of progression, and longevity are all specific to the individual, and can be unpredictable. People in the more advanced stages typically lose mobility, speech, and the ability to chew and swallow safely. One of the things which ca...
In this paper, I discuss parents’ accounts of personifying and memorialising their child through ... more In this paper, I discuss parents’ accounts of personifying and memorialising their child through a visual and virtual lens. As an extension of a real world memorial such as a gravesite, a virtual mourning space provides a space for personal narratives that are not socially or legitimately endorsed by the social networks to which bereaved parents relate. Parents often struggle to respond to others ‘awkward silences’ or seeming insensitivities. Virtual mourning sites, thus, provide a space and location for narration about a deceased child and with it a sense of community building. Parents can attend to the dual process of grieving ( Stroebe and Schutt, 2001) by attending to life and society by ‘putting on a brave face,’ to then one of ‘normality ’ in a virtual world where expressions of grief are acknowledged and with it a sense of meaning which can be derived from an otherwise stigmatized self.
Presentation to the Open Thanatology group in Oct 2020 by Dr Kerry Jones. Features a review about... more Presentation to the Open Thanatology group in Oct 2020 by Dr Kerry Jones. Features a review about nurses and their first encounters with death, which was conducted by Dr Kerry Jones and Prof Jan Draper. File includes recorded presentation and a copy of the Powerpoint slides.
Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-icl-10.1177_10541373211000175 for A Systematic Review of the Effe... more Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-icl-10.1177_10541373211000175 for A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Managing Grief Experienced by Bereaved Spouses or Partners of Adults Who Had Received Palliative Care by K. Jones, A. Methley, G. Boyle, R. Garcia and J. Vseteckova in Illness, Crisis & Loss
Background. The admission of an infant to the neonatal intensive care unit represents for many pa... more Background. The admission of an infant to the neonatal intensive care unit represents for many parents, an unexpected and challenging event, particularly following birth. Neo natal nurses are often involved with patient’s families during difficult times when death is anticipated due to the clinical condition of the baby and withdrawal of artificial ventilation at the end of life. For many parents communication and the support that nurses and clinicians provide, can mediate parental responses to their infant’s death. There is an opportunity to forge a relationship of trust necessary to provide optimal care for patients and parents. A vital aspect of this care is the recognition of the significance of the death of the infant. Aims. This research raises important issues around the lived experiences of parents on the neo natal unit, particularly at the end of an infant’s life. Methods. This is a qualitative collective case study sample of 30 parents who were recruited from the southwest...
This paper utilizes accounts and statements from published and unpublished memoirs, and first per... more This paper utilizes accounts and statements from published and unpublished memoirs, and first person account interviews, such as those given by Edith Starobin (Rosenfeld) courtesy of the United states Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) and accounts Kindertransport (The Kindertransport to Britain: New Perspectives 2012) and individual memoirs such as Ruth Barnett’s Person of no nationality: a story of loss and recovery. I am not confining these accounts to learning what happen to children’s parents’, some of whom did not learn until the 1980’s what happened to their mother and father. But, also to those experiences of attempted assimilation, of trying to fit in, and of being separated for so long from parents some of whom had survived were later to become strangers to one another.
End of life care is high on the policy and political agenda (DH 2006) and in interdisciplinary ac... more End of life care is high on the policy and political agenda (DH 2006) and in interdisciplinary academic and practice debates (Higginson, 2016). Healthcare policy over the last 10 years has consistently highlighted deficiencies in the quality of end of life health care and identified a range of strategies - across disciplines and settings to improve the experience of care for patients and their families (NP&EoLCP, 2015). Nurses are at the forefront of this care, caring for dying patients, 'managing' the dead body, and dealing with the corporeal, emotional and relational dimensions of death. Whilst nurses are 'taught' the theory of and practice of end of life care, we know little about their prior experiences of death, dying and the corpse and how these shape their subsequent professional engagement and practice. This paper presents the findings of a scoping review to explore nurses first encounters with, reactions to, dying, death and mortality, and how these formativ...
Background End of life care is high on policy and political agendas in the UK and internationally... more Background End of life care is high on policy and political agendas in the UK and internationally. Nurses are at the forefront of this care, caring for dying patients, and ‘managing’ the dead body, and dealing with the corporeal, emotional and relational dimensions of death. Little is known about their prior or early professional experiences of and reactions to death, dying and the corpse and how these might influence practice. Aims To appraise the international literature on nurses’ early experiences of death, dying and the dead body, to better understand how these might influence subsequent practice, and how this might inform our teaching of death, dying and last offices. Design A scoping review was undertaken of peer-reviewed publications between 2000 – 2019 which included hospital, care home, and in the community. Medline, PubMed, PsychINFO and CINAHL databases were searched and 23 papers meeting the inclusion criteria were read. Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) five stage approach ...
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many changes to the lives of children and young... more Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many changes to the lives of children and young people. Our aim is to explore the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of children and young people (ages 5-21). Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines was used to report the findings of this rapid review. Results: Children and young people are potentially very vulnerable to the emotional impact of traumatic events that disrupt their daily lives. Key areas of concern include: Death Anxiety and Fear of Infection; lack of social interaction and loss of routine. Conclusions: Despite some early and responsive studies, the evidence base for pandemic impact on children and young people is very limited. Such evidence is urgently needed if adequate and responsive services, that can mitigate the long-term impact of the pandemic for children and young people can be established.
To report on research conducted on men's experiences of grief and loss following stillbirth and n... more To report on research conducted on men's experiences of grief and loss following stillbirth and neonatal death in high-income, Western countries. Design: This review was guided by the following research questions: 1. The impact of perinatal death for men 2. The meaning of the loss for a father's sense of identity 3. The extent to which men were able to express grief while supporting their partners and, 4. how men's experience of grief was mediated by the support and care received by health professionals. Data sources: We searched the following databases: Medline; PsychINFO; CINAHL to identify relevant articles published from the year 20 0 0 onwards. The searches were run between 1/04/2018 and 8/4/2018. Review methods: A scoping review was conducted of nursing, psychological, medical and social science databases using these key words: fathers' grief, men's grief, perinatal loss and death, stillbirth and neonatal death. Results: Studies indicated that men reported less intense and enduring levels of psychological outcomes than women but were more likely to engage in avoidance and coping behaviours such as increased alcohol consumption. Men felt that their role was primarily as a 'supportive partner' and that they were overlooked by health professionals. Conclusions: Further research is needed on men's experience of grief following perinatal death, especially on their physical and mental well-being. Impact: This review addressed the problem of the lack of knowledge around paternal needs following perinatal death and highlighted areas which researchers could usefully investigate with the eventual aim of improving care for fathers.
Background: Undergraduate nursing students spend a significant amount of time in clinical placeme... more Background: Undergraduate nursing students spend a significant amount of time in clinical placements where they are involved in care at the end of a person's life and care after death. While their role is to provide compassionate care, some students feel wholly unprepared. Aims: The aim of this qualitative study was to explore student nurses' experiences of care in death, dying and post death care, and to explore how students can be better prepared to provide such care. Methods: This is a qualitative descriptive study that is concerned with the subjective reality of participant's experiences. Findings: Six themes were developed from the analysis: first encounters with death and dying; preparedness; mentoring and support received; the caring role; striving to cope; working with families and working through COVID-19. Conclusion: Students described their experience of placements in end-of-life care as challenging, yet were also able to adopt ways to develop as compassionate practitioners.
The aim of this study was to explore children's experience and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic... more The aim of this study was to explore children's experience and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic through their illustrations and short narrations. During October 2020 and January 2021 data was collected from thirteen children aged 9-10 years old in a primary school in the NorthWest of England. Children were asked to draw their thoughts and feelings about the pandemic and to write a short narration to accompany the drawing. Thematic analysis of data revealed that during the pandemic children at this age have an understanding of death, experience death anxiety and are able to use creative expression to facilitate meaning of the impact of lockdown on their lives such as feeling isolated, lonely, sad and bored. Creative expression also facilitated adaptive coping mechanisms derived from being able to spend more time with family. The data on primary school children is part of a larger study which involved surveys and interviews with children aged 12-16 years in secondary schools.
Implications for practice • Findings confirm the significant impact of Covid-19 on the mental hea... more Implications for practice • Findings confirm the significant impact of Covid-19 on the mental health of children and young people. • Findings highlight trust, and roles and relationships with parents and teachers. • Timely and accessible information should supplement the provision of mental health services to support children and young people experiencing death anxiety.
Background The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many changes to the lives of children and young ... more Background The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many changes to the lives of children and young people. Our aim is to explore the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of children and young people (ages 5–21). Methods The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines was used to report the findings of this rapid review. Results Children and young people are potentially very vulnerable to the emotional impact of traumatic events that disrupt their daily lives. Key areas of concern include: Death Anxiety and Fear of Infection; lack of social interaction and loss of routine. Conclusions Despite some early and responsive studies, the evidence base for pandemic impact on children and young people is very limited. Such evidence is urgently needed if adequate and responsive services, that can mitigate the long-term impact of the pandemic for children and young people can be established.
In the UK is estimated at around 800,000 people, with 90, 000 people with dementia in Scotland. I... more In the UK is estimated at around 800,000 people, with 90, 000 people with dementia in Scotland. It’s forecast that by 2025, one in three people over the age of 60 will have dementia when they die. It is not always recognised that dementia is a progressive and life-limiting illness – perhaps because you can die of other things for example cardiovascular disease. However, as a result dementia hasn’t received the same level of attention or professional support as other life-limiting illnesses e.g. cancer. In response, a lot of policies – like the Scottish palliative care strategy want to get us talking about death and dying – but we need to get dementia included in those conversations. Dementia involves complex physical and psychological needs. Symptoms, rate of progression, and longevity are all specific to the individual, and can be unpredictable. People in the more advanced stages typically lose mobility, speech, and the ability to chew and swallow safely. One of the things which ca...
In this paper, I discuss parents’ accounts of personifying and memorialising their child through ... more In this paper, I discuss parents’ accounts of personifying and memorialising their child through a visual and virtual lens. As an extension of a real world memorial such as a gravesite, a virtual mourning space provides a space for personal narratives that are not socially or legitimately endorsed by the social networks to which bereaved parents relate. Parents often struggle to respond to others ‘awkward silences’ or seeming insensitivities. Virtual mourning sites, thus, provide a space and location for narration about a deceased child and with it a sense of community building. Parents can attend to the dual process of grieving ( Stroebe and Schutt, 2001) by attending to life and society by ‘putting on a brave face,’ to then one of ‘normality ’ in a virtual world where expressions of grief are acknowledged and with it a sense of meaning which can be derived from an otherwise stigmatized self.
Presentation to the Open Thanatology group in Oct 2020 by Dr Kerry Jones. Features a review about... more Presentation to the Open Thanatology group in Oct 2020 by Dr Kerry Jones. Features a review about nurses and their first encounters with death, which was conducted by Dr Kerry Jones and Prof Jan Draper. File includes recorded presentation and a copy of the Powerpoint slides.
Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-icl-10.1177_10541373211000175 for A Systematic Review of the Effe... more Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-icl-10.1177_10541373211000175 for A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Managing Grief Experienced by Bereaved Spouses or Partners of Adults Who Had Received Palliative Care by K. Jones, A. Methley, G. Boyle, R. Garcia and J. Vseteckova in Illness, Crisis & Loss
Background. The admission of an infant to the neonatal intensive care unit represents for many pa... more Background. The admission of an infant to the neonatal intensive care unit represents for many parents, an unexpected and challenging event, particularly following birth. Neo natal nurses are often involved with patient’s families during difficult times when death is anticipated due to the clinical condition of the baby and withdrawal of artificial ventilation at the end of life. For many parents communication and the support that nurses and clinicians provide, can mediate parental responses to their infant’s death. There is an opportunity to forge a relationship of trust necessary to provide optimal care for patients and parents. A vital aspect of this care is the recognition of the significance of the death of the infant. Aims. This research raises important issues around the lived experiences of parents on the neo natal unit, particularly at the end of an infant’s life. Methods. This is a qualitative collective case study sample of 30 parents who were recruited from the southwest...
This paper utilizes accounts and statements from published and unpublished memoirs, and first per... more This paper utilizes accounts and statements from published and unpublished memoirs, and first person account interviews, such as those given by Edith Starobin (Rosenfeld) courtesy of the United states Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) and accounts Kindertransport (The Kindertransport to Britain: New Perspectives 2012) and individual memoirs such as Ruth Barnett’s Person of no nationality: a story of loss and recovery. I am not confining these accounts to learning what happen to children’s parents’, some of whom did not learn until the 1980’s what happened to their mother and father. But, also to those experiences of attempted assimilation, of trying to fit in, and of being separated for so long from parents some of whom had survived were later to become strangers to one another.
End of life care is high on the policy and political agenda (DH 2006) and in interdisciplinary ac... more End of life care is high on the policy and political agenda (DH 2006) and in interdisciplinary academic and practice debates (Higginson, 2016). Healthcare policy over the last 10 years has consistently highlighted deficiencies in the quality of end of life health care and identified a range of strategies - across disciplines and settings to improve the experience of care for patients and their families (NP&EoLCP, 2015). Nurses are at the forefront of this care, caring for dying patients, 'managing' the dead body, and dealing with the corporeal, emotional and relational dimensions of death. Whilst nurses are 'taught' the theory of and practice of end of life care, we know little about their prior experiences of death, dying and the corpse and how these shape their subsequent professional engagement and practice. This paper presents the findings of a scoping review to explore nurses first encounters with, reactions to, dying, death and mortality, and how these formativ...
Background End of life care is high on policy and political agendas in the UK and internationally... more Background End of life care is high on policy and political agendas in the UK and internationally. Nurses are at the forefront of this care, caring for dying patients, and ‘managing’ the dead body, and dealing with the corporeal, emotional and relational dimensions of death. Little is known about their prior or early professional experiences of and reactions to death, dying and the corpse and how these might influence practice. Aims To appraise the international literature on nurses’ early experiences of death, dying and the dead body, to better understand how these might influence subsequent practice, and how this might inform our teaching of death, dying and last offices. Design A scoping review was undertaken of peer-reviewed publications between 2000 – 2019 which included hospital, care home, and in the community. Medline, PubMed, PsychINFO and CINAHL databases were searched and 23 papers meeting the inclusion criteria were read. Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) five stage approach ...
This important book draws together new research and theories about bereavement, on the one hand, ... more This important book draws together new research and theories about bereavement, on the one hand, and men and masculinities on the other, to increase our understanding of men’s experience of loss and contribute towards improving support services for men following bereavement. Bereavement and loss are unavoidable events in life and can be challenging experiences for anyone, regardless of gender. However, in contemporary western cultures, men’s experience of bereavement continues to be framed by socially constructed ideas surrounding masculinity, which dictate that men must be stoic following a loss, with grief manifesting in either anger or despair. Men who do not grieve in accepted ‘masculine’ ways can feel judged, alienated or disenfranchised. This interdisciplinary and interprofessional collection presents theoretical analysis, reports of research findings, reviews of support and interventions, and a wealth of personal accounts. It includes chapters discussing partner loss, childhood bereavement, perinatal loss and bereavement through suicide, as well as bereavement at all stages of the life course.
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