Impact Of Parental Loss Research Articles

Unmasking Orphan Students' Deep Psychological Defeat

General Background: Psychological defeat significantly impacts individuals' emotional well-being, particularly in vulnerable populations such as orphan students. Existing research often overlooks the nuanced experiences of orphans in secondary education. Specific Background: Orphanhood, encompassing the loss of one or both parents, creates unique psychological challenges that can affect students' emotional and academic performance. This study addresses the gap in understanding how these challenges manifest among orphan students in secondary schools. Knowledge Gap: Despite acknowledging the emotional difficulties faced by orphans, limited research has specifically explored psychological defeat among this group, particularly concerning the impact of parental loss and gender differences. Aims: This research aims to identify and measure the degree of psychological defeat among orphan students in secondary schools in Basra Governorate. The study also seeks to determine if psychological defeat varies by the type of parental loss and gender. Results: The study found that orphan students experience a high level of psychological defeat, with no significant gender differences observed. However, significant variations in psychological defeat were identified based on the type of parental loss (father, mother, or both). Novelty: This research introduces a newly developed scale for measuring psychological defeat tailored to the context of orphan students, filling a critical gap in existing literature. Implications: The findings underscore the need for targeted psychological support and interventions for orphan students, considering the type of parental loss. Recommendations include developing tailored counseling programs and support mechanisms to address the specific needs of these students and mitigate their psychological defeat. Highlights: High psychological defeat in orphan students, regardless of gender. Variations by parental loss type, significant differences found. New scale developed for measuring psychological defeat in orphans. Keywords: Psychological defeat, orphan students, secondary education, parental loss, emotional well-being

The Impact of Parental Death in Childhood on Sons\u2019 and Daughters\u2019 Status Attainment in Young Adulthood in the Netherlands, 1850\u20131952

Previous research on the impact of parental loss on labor market outcomes in adulthood has often suffered from low sample sizes. To generate further insights into the long-term consequences of parental death, I use the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN). The HSN contains occupational information on life courses of a sample of more than 8,000 males and almost 7,000 females born between 1850 and 1922, a period of important labor market transformations. Roughly 20 % of the sample population experienced parental death before age 16. Linear regression models show that maternal loss is significantly associated with lower occupational position in adulthood for both men and women, which points to the crucial importance of maternal care in childhood for socioeconomic outcomes in later life. This interpretation is supported by the finding that a stepmother’s entry into the family is positively related with sons’ occupational position later in life. In contrast to expectations, the loss of economic resources related to the father’s death is generally not associated with lower status attainment in adulthood for men or for women. The results indicate, however, that the negative consequences of paternal death on men’s socioeconomic outcomes decreased over time, illustrating the complex interaction between individual life courses and surrounding labor market transformations.

Stress, coping and quality of life: An exploratory study of the psychological well-being of Ghanaian orphans placed in orphanages

Previous studies have demonstrated that parental loss and orphanage placement can be stressful and can negatively affect the psychological well-being of children. However, studies on the psychological well-being of orphanage-placed children in Accra, Ghana are scarce and the impact of parental loss and orphanage placement is minimally understood. The aim of the present study was to explore stress (symptoms of depression and anxiety), coping and the overall quality of life of orphaned children in comparison to non-orphans who resided with their parents. We sampled 200 participants aged between 7 and 17years, with 100 being orphaned children placed in four orphanages (experimental group) and 100 non-orphans from two public schools in Accra, Ghana (control group). The participants completed the Children's Depression Inventory, the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, the Kidcope scale and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF Version. One-way Analysis of Variance revealed that orphaned children showed more anxiety symptoms than non-orphans but there were no significant differences between orphaned children and non-orphans on symptoms of depression and overall quality of life. The Pearson product-moment correlation analyses revealed significant correlations between depression, anxiety, coping and quality of life in the orphaned children and non-orphans. Stepwise regression analyses also revealed that for orphaned children, anxiety and support-seeking coping emerged as significant predictors of qualify of life whereas depression emerged as a significant predictor of quality of life for the non-orphaned children. The implications of the results are discussed.

Childhood parental loss and risk for first-onset of major depression and alcohol dependence: the time-decay of risk and sex differences.

Whereas a number of studies have suggested that parental loss is associated with increased risk for major depression (MD), much less is known about possible gender differences, diagnostic specificity and the time course of the impact of loss. First-onsets for MD and alcohol dependence (AD) were assessed at personal interviews in 5070 twins from same-sex (SS) and 2118 from opposite-sex (OS) twin pairs ascertained from a population-based registry. Cox Proportional Hazard (PH) and Non-Proportional Hazard (NPH) models, examining first onsets of MD and AD, were used with twins from SS pairs and conditional logistic regression for OS pairs. Parent-child separations prior to age 17 were divided into death and separation from other causes. The PH assumptions of constant increased risk were rejected for the impact of loss on risk for MD but not for AD. NPH models found significantly increased risk for MD after both death and separation with the risk lasting much longer for separations. For AD, the PH model found significantly increased risk after parental separation but not death. In both SS and OS twin pairs, no sex differences were seen in the impact of parental loss on risk for MD whereas the association between separation and risk for AD was significantly stronger in females than in males. Consistent sex differences in the association with parental loss were seen for AD but not MD. The analysis of the time-course of increased risk after loss suggests three different patterns which may reflect different relationships: parental death and MD (return to baseline within approximately 12 years), separation and MD (return to baseline within approximately 30 years) and separation and AD (no change in risk over time).

An Assessment of Resources for Counselor Coping and Recovery in the Aftermath of Client Suicide

The authors report on interviews with counselors who had faced the crisis of client suicide about accessibility and utility of resources for coping and recovery. All identified resources were rated as potentially useful, but their utility was sometimes impaired by limited access. Recommendations for promoting recovery from client suicide are presented.