Abstract
Objective: Losing the only child is considered as the most severe kind of bereavement. It can trigger intense grief symptoms along with loss of psychosocial resources, but meanwhile, it can also lead to posttraumatic growth (PTG). The current study aimed to examine (a) whether a curvilinear relationship exists between grief and PTG and (b) the moderating role of resources-loss among Chinese bereaved parents who lost their only child (shidu parents).Methods: One hundred and ninety-nine shidu parents from five provinces completed the assessment packet covering prolonged grief symptoms and PTG, as well as resource loss. Hierarchical regression analyses were computed to examine the curvilinear relationship and the moderating effect of interpersonal loss and socio-economic loss.Results: There was no significant curvilinear relationship between grief and PTG in shidu parents. Under the high levels of interpersonal loss, shidu parents’ PTG scores decreased as the severity of grief increased. However, the socio-economic loss did not show a significant moderating effect.Conclusion: The results of the current study did not show a significant curvilinear relationship between grief and PTG in shidu parents. High levels of grief coupled with high levels of interpersonal loss may interfere with their ability to achieve PTG. Therefore, evaluating degrees of interpersonal loss seems to be an important part of the treatment process when working with shidu parents. To facilitate their adaptation from a positive perspective, helping them maintain existing or develop new interpersonal relationships may be helpful.
Highlights
As an old Chinese saying states, “there are three biggest misfortunes in life: fatherless in youth, widowed in middle age, and childless in old age,” loss of a child is considered the most severe kind of bereavement (Zetumer et al, 2015)
The current study examined the relationship between grief and PTG, and the moderating role of resources-loss among Chinese bereaved parents who lost their only child
When exploring the moderating effect of interpersonal loss, we found that more severe grief symptoms were related to lower PTG when the interpersonal loss is higher
Summary
As an old Chinese saying states, “there are three biggest misfortunes in life: fatherless in youth, widowed in middle age, and childless in old age,” loss of a child is considered the most severe kind of bereavement (Zetumer et al, 2015). It often leads to intense emotional pain and a higher rate of prolonged grief disorder (PGD; Kersting et al, 2011; Newson et al, 2011; Zhou et al, 2018). What is more bitter than the death of a child is losing the only child in a context where it is a cultural imperative to continue family bloodlines, and children are the source of care for aging parents (Zheng and Lawson, 2015). Compared to Chinese parents with a living child or who had given birth again, they had a higher risk of intense grief, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and chronic diseases (Xu et al, 2014; Zheng et al, 2017; Cao et al, 2018; Yin et al, 2018). Grief intensity may vary over time, grief would not go away entirely throughout shidu parents’ whole life (Wei et al, 2016; Simon et al, 2020)
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