View clinical trials related to Bereavement.
Filter by:The goal of this pilot RCT is to investigate the acceptability and feasibility of an unguided culturally adapted self-help app for grieving Syrian refugees in Switzerland. Furthermore, the study will examine whether using the app has an effect on secondary outcomes (e.g., grief symptoms).The main questions it aims to answer are: - Is the self-help app culturally acceptable and feasible in this target group and what do we need to adapt? - Does the use of the self-help app reduce grief symptoms? (amongst other secondary outcomes) Participants will be asked to: - Complete a baseline assessment - then use the self-help app for 5 weeks - Complete a second assessment and participate in a short semi-structured interview regarding acceptability and feasibility. Researchers will compare an intervention group to a wait-list control group to see if the use of the self-help app has an effect on secondary outcomes.
The purpose of the RISE study is to examine how the 24-hour rhythm of sleep and social activity relate to mood and suicidal ideation among older adults that recently lost a spouse or life partner.
In this study, researchers will use Photovoice to learn about how bereaved parents felt and thought about hope when their children were on hospice. 'Photovoice' is a research method that uses participants' photographs as a springboard for discussion. Primary Objective - To explore reflections, emotions, and experiences evoked in bereaved parents when reviewing photographs from their child's time on hospice, with photos selected by parents based on a prompt related to their thoughts about hope during that time.
Parents of children who die traumatically or unexpectedly from things like suicide or an overdose suffer from mental and physical health problems and can experience massive disruptions in their family life. For about half of these parents, the first, and sometimes only, interactions they have with the healthcare system when their child dies are with a medical examiner or coroner (hereafter 'ME'). But MEs have little to no training in helping grieving families, and there are no standards guiding medical examiners or coroners on how or even if they should help grieving families. This gap leaves parents to find the help they need on their own. This research will test two different strategies for addressing this gap in the healthcare system.
The death of a child, at any age, is considered one of the most stressful life events a person can experience. In 2020, 11,050 children (under 15 years), 5,000 adolescents (15-19 years) and 60,000 young adults (20-39 years) were estimated to be diagnosed with cancer in the US. While the five-year survival is better for children than adults, over 10,000 children, adolescents, and young adults die from cancer in the US each year.1 Bereaved parents often experience intense and lasting psychological distress resulting in significantly higher morbidity and mortality compared to non-bereaved parents. Twenty-five percent of bereaved parents report new diagnoses of illnesses including prediabetes, anxiety and sleep disorders. Bereaved parents also experience psychological distress such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and grief-related depressive symptoms that continue to be significant for years after a child's death. A recent study showed that nearly 33% of bereaved parents suffered from prolonged grief five years after their loss.6 Physiologically, studies show increased cortisol, immune, endocrine, and cardio biomarkers in people with prolonged grief. The death of a child can also affect family and social relationships resulting in decreased communication, feelings of isolation, absence of close social relationships and increased marital strain and divorce. The purpose of this randomized controlled pilot study is to evaluate the feasibility of implementing a six-week multi-dimensional intervention, Storytelling Through Music (STM), with parents of children who have died from cancer. STM combines multiple modalities of expression (storytelling, writing, and music) to facilitate loss- and restoration-oriented coping by creating a legacy piece (self-written story paired with song) to facilitate continuing bonds with the deceased and find meaning.
The purpose of this study is to develop and optimize a targeted behavioral intervention for sleep disturbance among individuals who have recently lost a spouse/long-term cohabitating partner. In the first phase of this study, patient focus groups were conducted to gather information about the unique sleep challenges experienced by spousally bereaved individuals and the kinds of support they would like to receive from a program based on Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). In the second phase of the study, a two-arm randomized controlled trial will be conducted to compare changes in sleep and inflammation among participants in the targeted CBT-I intervention to those in an information-only control. Participants will be asked to attend two in-person visits (at baseline and, approx. 8 weeks later, at post-treatment) to provide a blood sample and have vital signs and basic anthropometric measurements (height, weight, waist circumference) taken. After their baseline visit, participants will be randomized into either the targeted CBT-I intervention or the information-only control. The targeted CBT-I intervention will entail 6 online sessions (approx. 50 mins. each) delivered via videoconference by a trained facilitator, once per week over the course of approx. 6 weeks. The information-only control will entail 1 online session (approx. 50 mins.) delivered via videoconference by a trained facilitator. Sleep data (collected via both actigraphy watches and patient self-report sleep diaries) and data on mood, grief, and sleep habits will be collected from participants at three timepoints (baseline, post-treatment, and then again at a 6-month follow-up).
The purpose of this study is to compare three types of support programs for parents who have lost a child. The study will see how these support programs affect participants' grief and depression symptoms. The three support programs are called Meaning-Centered Grief Therapy, Supportive Counseling, and Enhanced Usual Care.
This study investigates the underlying mechanisms of a novel emotion regulation intervention among recently bereaved spouses. More specifically, this study examines how thinking about an emotional stimulus in a more adaptive way can affect the relationship between psychological stress, psychophysiological biomarkers of adaptive cardiac response, and brain activity. The emotion regulation strategy targeted is reappraisal, specifically reappraisal-by-distancing (i.e., thinking about a negative situation in a more objective, impartial way) versus reappraisal-by-reinterpretation (i.e., thinking about a better outcome for a negative situation than what initially seemed apparent). The study seeks to determine if relatively brief, focused reappraisal training in bereaved spouses will result in reduction of self-reported negative affect, increases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; a measure of heart rate variability reflecting adaptive cardiac vagal tone), reduction in blood-based inflammatory biomarkers, and changes in neural activity over time. Reappraisal-by-distancing is expected to lead to greater changes in these variables relative to reappraisal-by-reinterpretation. Additionally, it is expected that across time decreases in self-reported negative affect, increases in RSA, reductions in blood-based inflammatory biomarker levels, and changes in neural activity will in turn lead to reductions in depressive symptoms and grief rumination. Finally, it is expected that distancing training will lead to reductions in depressive symptoms and grief rumination that are mediated by changes in the targeted neurobiological and behavioral mechanisms.
While most bereaved individuals cope adaptively with the loss of a loved one, a significant minority experiences more severe and complicated grief reactions. Complicated grief reactions is an umbrella term for different types of post-loss complications, including symptoms of Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD), depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress. These post-loss complications may all cause persistent suffering and functional impairment, thus pointing to a need for efficacious treatment. While Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a relatively well-documented efficacious treatment for symptoms of PGD, depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress in the period after a loss, the relative efficacy of a transdiagnostic individually delivered versus group-based CBT for these types of complicated grief reactions (CBTgrief) remain unknown. Furthermore, little evidence exists about the relative cost-effectiveness of individually delivered versus group-based CBTgrief and why and how it works. The theory of CBTgrief proposes that it works by targeting three maintaining mechanisms in PGD: 1) Insufficient integration of the loss, 2) negative loss-related cognitions, and 3) depressive and anxious avoidance. These maintaining mechanisms have also shown to be statistically associated with depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress in the period after a loss, suggesting that different types of complicated grief reactions might share some of the same maintaining mechanisms. However, this proposed theory of change has yet to be empirically tested as a whole. These knowledge gaps are crucial for the understanding of efficacious and cost-effective treatment formats as well as central treatment mechanisms in the psychological treatment of complicated grief reactions. The present study thus aims to examine the relative efficacy of an individually delivered versus group-based CBTgrief by means of a randomized non-inferiority trial. Secondary aims include an investigation of the relative cost-effectiveness of individually delivered versus group-based CBTgrief as well as treatment mediators. Finally, explorative analyses of potential moderators of intervention effects of CBTgrief will be conducted.