Abstract
The extraordinary circumstances of deaths during COVID-19 pandemic have been challenging for the deceased's families. This contribution aims to describe some spontaneous strategies that family members may adopt to cope with the loss of a relative for COVID-19. The present reflection derives from the experience of a clinical psychology unit of one of the biggest public hospital in Milan, Italy, which supported 246 families of COVID-19 victims in the 1st days after the loss. Spontaneous strategies used by family members to deal with such a unique mourning process involved: creating alternative good-bye rituals, normalizing the loss, addressing faith and hope, highlighting the perks of isolation, supporting others in need, and delivering the bad news to others. These observed strategies may suggest how to assess and support a “normal” bereavement process during the extraordinary COVID-19 circumstances, in order to prevent further psychological distress.
Highlights
During the COronaVIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, especially in the emergency phases, people have been dying in extraordinary circumstances, which have been affecting relatives’ grieving process [1], especially for people who lost a relative at the hospital [2]
In the COVID-19 situation, most of the instruments that psychologists know as helpful for patients and families dealing with a death in the hospital, like family involvement, physical presence, clear information, and preparation [19, 20] have been negated
COVID-19 deaths at the hospital, especially during the emergency phases of the pandemic, when Italian people were in major lockdown, might be lived as “bad deaths,” affecting the intensity and the quality of family members’
Summary
During the COronaVIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, especially in the emergency phases, people have been dying in extraordinary circumstances, which have been affecting relatives’ grieving process [1], especially for people who lost a relative at the hospital [2]. In the present perspective article, we used this clinical experience and research data (in particular, the one derived from written reports that psychologists filled after each call) as the basis to inductively extract recurrently strategies that family members spontaneously showed to cope with the loss in the very first moments after the loss.
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