A Concept Analysis of Grief

Paper Summary:

This paper is a concept analysis of grief behaviors in families, as witnessed in the pediatric critical care setting. The writer explains how grief is a concept surrounded by ambiguity despite nurses' frequent encounters with grieving persons. This paper clarifies this concept and explains how it allows nurses to gain insight into managing grieving families in a therapeutic manner. A concept analysis is described using antecedents, attributes and referents, and principal variables of grief are identified. In addition, model, contrary, borderline, related and illegitimate cases are described. It shows how this analysis can contribute to the establishment of nursing practices with grieving persons.

From the Paper:

"Grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me" (Bartlett, 1919). The death of a child, sudden or otherwise, has a profound, life changing effect on the family infrastructure. As nurses, it is important to develop skills of compassion so that we can support these families in their time of need. In order to support a family through the initial stages of grief, one must look at their own belief systems. One must keep an open mind and realize that every family has a different belief system related to death, dying and the grieving process. Our responsibility is not to get families to believe as we believe, rather we must fill the role that the family defines for us during their time of need.

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