Abstract
Talking and grieving together may be advantageous for maintaining belief in a meaningful future and can help bereaved adolescents and their parents to cope better with the situation. The aim of this study was to explore communication, self-esteem and prolonged grief in adolescent-parent dyads, following the death of a parent to cancer. This study has a descriptive and comparative design. Twenty family dyads consisting of parentally bereaved adolescents (12-19 years) and their widowed parents completed the Parent and Adolescent Communication Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and Prolonged Grief-13, 1-4 years following the death of a parent. Twelve family dyads reported normal-high parent-adolescent communication, 11 dyads rated normal-high self-esteem. Two adolescents and three parents scored above the cut-off for possible prolonged grief disorder (≥35), none of these were in the same dyads. There was a difference (p<.05) between boys (mean 40.0) and girls (mean 41.9) with regard to open family communication, as assessed by parents. Girls reported lower self-esteem (mean 26.0) than boys (mean 34.1, p<.01). This study provides insights from parentally bereaved families which indicate that despite experiencing the often-traumatic life event of losing a parent or partner, most participants reported normal parent-adolescent communication, normal self-esteem and few symptoms of prolonged grief. The potential usefulness of identifying families who may need professional support in family communication following the death of a parent is discussed.
Highlights
The death of a parent is among the worst things that can happen to an adolescent
No previous study has explored communication, self-esteem and prolonged grief in paired adolescent-parent dyads. Considering that both adolescents’ and parents’ psychological health and self-esteem seem to be dependent on family member’s ability to communicate with one another, and that communication may help families to cope with their grief, we found it advantageous to study this further
This study, focusing on communication, self-esteem and prolonged grief in family dyads consisting of cancer-bereaved adolescents and their widowed parents, mainly reflect normal levels of parent-adolescent communication and self-esteem, and little impact of prolonged grief
Summary
The death of a parent is among the worst things that can happen to an adolescent. The loss of someone loved may affect the individual emotionally, physically, socially, cognitively, and spiritually (Zisook et al, 2014). Adolescents and young adults have reported poor psychosocial wellbeing, anxiety, and depression following the death of a parent to cancer (Lundberg et al, 2018a). Loss of a loved one in adolescence may result in negative life events that make it difficult to cope with losses later in life (Schwartz et al, 2018). For the widowed parent, losing a partner is associated with an elevated risk of psychological health problems, such as depression and anxiety (Blanner Kristiansen et al, 2019; Yopp et al, 2019), which may impact their parental role. A qualitative study, with focus on communication in families with minor children following the death of a parent to cancer, revealed the importance of family communication for coping with the loss (Weber et al, 2019a). Studies suggest that communication between the surviving parent and child may be a useful target of clinical intervention to improve psychological health. (Field et al, 2014; Shapiro et al, 2014; Weber et al, 2019b)
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