This is a subset of data extracted from a larger data set on studnent wellness and wellbeing collected in November 2018 at a small liberal arts university in Northern California. The variables used in our manuscript submitted for publication are included in this file.

The primary data source for this study is the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS), which in 2001 defined a representative cohort of c.28% of the population. It is formed from the linkage of the universal Health Card registration system, 2001 Census returns, and vital statistics data. NILS contains a unique Health and Care Number that enables linkage to other health service databases. It is maintained by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). The 2001 Census records provided most of the attributes of the NILS cohort members, also contextual information relating to household composition and interpersonal relationships, and characteristics of the household and area of residence. The vital events linked to NILS were used to determine whether a cohort member had been bereaved between April 2001 (the time of the Census) and the end of December 2009. The 2001 Census asked questions about relationship to other people living in the household, these questions were used to determine who a cohort member lived with, and the vital events records identified co-resident family members’ deaths. Approximately 96% of death records are routinely linked to the NILS dataset using a mixture of exact and probabilistic matching. Data relating to medications that have been prescribed by a General Practitioner and dispensed from community pharmacies have been collated centrally in an Enhanced Prescribing Database (EPD) since 2009. Each prescription record contains the individual’s Health and Care Number, a General Practice (GP) identifier, the drug name and British National Formulary (BNF) category. Information was extracted for antidepressant and anxiolytic medications (BNF categories 4.1.2 and 4.3) for the period January 1st to February 28th 2010. Health and Care Number allowed exact matching between prescribing and NILS records. The linkage process was carried out by the EPD and NILS data custodians. The linked dataset was then anonymised before being supplied to the researchers, and was held in a secure setting (9). At no time were patient identifiable data available. The data used for the Grief study is not publicly available, but researchers can make a request to link data for themselves by contacting the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study Research Support Unit Everybody will face bereavement at some stage; but for some people, this can be a more difficult process. There are many factors that can influence how people cope with the loss of a loved one, including level of family support, financial resources, stress, and the circumstances surrounding death.By studying use of prescription medications to help with mental health, we can get a better understanding of how factors such as age, gender, family support, employment and religion affect how people cope after bereavement. By looking at circumstances of bereavement this study will also discover if the factors that help people cope - such as family support - are more or less important depending on how they lost their loved ones.The Grief Study is based on data from the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study, this holds information on around 500,000 people. By linking this data with the Northern Ireland Mortality Study and Health and Social care information on prescriptions, the Grief Study aims to learn more about bereavement, mental health, complicated grief, and longer term outcomes for people who have lost a loved one.

Most people are affected profoundly by bereavement at some point in their lives. However, the experience of grief remains poorly understood. Those who are grieving often remark that aspects of their grief are bewildering, hard to articulate, and difficult or impossible for others to comprehend. For instance, it might be that everything appears distant, strange, or even unreal, that what has happened seems somehow impossible, that one’s sense of self has been radically transformed, and that the person who has died is absent and yet in some way still present. The aim of this phenomenological survey was to investigate these and other features of grief, identify differences and commonalities between people’s experiences, and thus facilitate detailed, wide-ranging philosophical analyses of what is involved in experiencing grief (see, for example, Matthew Ratcliffe, Grief Worlds: A Study of Emotional Experience, MIT Press, 2022). The study was conducted as part of the project ‘Grief: A Study of Human Emotional Experience’ at the University of York, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. (Details of the project can be found at www.griefyork.com) The researchers drew upon themes that are central to first-person accounts of bereavement and also to phenomenological philosophy, in order to design a set of 21 questions addressing several prominent aspects of grief. Participants were invited to provide free-text responses to these questions, with no word limits. They selected present- or past-tense versions of the questionnaire, depending on whether or not they identified their grief as “current.” Present-tense versions of the questions were as follows: (1) What was the nature of your relationship with the person who died? (2) Please can you tell us about the circumstances of the bereavement, including when it occurred. (3) How has the person’s death affected you during the hours, days, and weeks that followed? (4) How, if at all, have your relationships with other people (particular individuals and other people in general) been affected by the bereavement? (5) Does the surrounding world seem any different to you while grieving? If so, how? (6) Has your experience of time changed in any way? (7) Has your body felt any different during grief? (8) Has grief interfered in any way with your ability and motivation to perform various tasks, including paid work? (9) Is your experience of grief changing over time? If so, how? (10) Have you ever found yourself looking for the person who died or expecting that person to appear? (11) Are there times, places, and occasions that have made you especially aware of the person’s absence? (12) People who are grieving often report experiencing the presence of the person who died. Have you had any experiences that you would describe in those terms? (13) Do you still feel a sense of connection with the person? If so, could you say something about when you feel this and what the experience is like. (14) Since the person died, is there anything that you have been doing in order to feel close to them? (15) Is there anything that you do in order to avoid being reminded of the person or of their death? (16) Has anything in particular helped you to cope with grief? Has anything made you feel better or worse? (17) How understanding have other people been? Have others said or done anything that you’ve found especially helpful or unhelpful? (18) How, if at all, has your experience of bereavement changed you as a person? (19) How, if at all, does grief over the death of a person differ from other forms of loss that you have experienced? (20) Are there any aspects of grief that you find particularly puzzling or difficult to put into words? (21) Are there any important aspects of your experience that we have not addressed? The survey received ethical approval from the Arts and Humanities Ethics Committee at the University of York. It was made available for participants via the online platform Qualtrix from 1 June 2020 until 4 February 2021. Anyone over the age of eighteen who identified as currently experiencing grief over the death of a person, or as having experienced grief in the past, was invited to complete it. Participants were able to access the survey after reading an information sheet and completing a consent form. A total of 265 completed responses were received. Of these, 235 focused on grief over the death of a person, which was the explicit focus of the questionnaire, with a majority (130) focusing on the death of a long-term partner. The remaining 30 responses were concerned principally with grief over involuntary childlessness rather than bereavement. These responses have been placed into a distinct dataset, which can be viewed on the ‘childlessness’ tab. All participants consented to their anonymized testimonies being made publicly available in full. They were asked not to include any identifying information. The researchers scrutinized the entire dataset rigorously and retracted any information that had the potential to identify participants or any other individuals. For example, names of people, specific places, and businesses were removed. In some cases, wording was altered slightly or condensed, in order to avoid potentially identifying contextual information. In anonymizing the data, one question (Question 2) was removed altogether, as accounts of the circumstances of bereavements could not be anonymized in this way. In addition to this Excel document, the corpus of grief experiences is freely available on two user-friendly, searchable Google apps available under related resources.

Financial overview and grant giving statistics of Grief Survivors Therapeutic Network

Grief is a natural response to the death of a loved one. Grief may vary between individuals and across time. When grief reactions are so intense that they disrupt daily functioning, a prolonged grief disorder (PGD) may apply. Most studies on PGD rely on cross-sectional survey data, which provide insights into between-person differences but are impossible to examine within person moment-to-moment changes in grief reactions. The Grief in Daily Life (Grief-ID) archive addresses this gap by providing harmonized datasets from ecological momentary assessment (EMA) projects. The use of EMA captures time- and context-dependent changes, disentangles between-person from within-person effects, reduces recall bias, and offers a more ecologically valid assessment of grief reactions. The archive complies with Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) research guiding principles and provides extensive metadata corresponding to each principle. Researchers are encouraged to reuse and contribute data to the Grief-ID archive, thereby furthering our understanding of grief in daily life. Data Collection Version 1.0 of the archive includes 315 participants and 22,050 EMA measurement points. On average, participants responded to 43.77 ESM notifications in total, with the median being 50, on a scale from 1 to 70, which reflects an overall compliance rate of 71%. Individuals aged 18 years and above were eligible to participate. People diagnosed with a psychotic disorder or those reporting suicidal ideation, assessed at baseline, were excluded from participation. The studies included in Version 1.0 consisted of three distinct phases of data collection. First, the initial baseline measures included questions assessing sociodemographic, loss characteristics, measures of psychopathology, and other measures. Second, the ESM phase was conducted using the Avicenna application (Avicenna Research, 2024). Participants rated the intensity of PGD symptoms and contextual factors five times a day, for a period of 14 days. Third, the final phase of the study was conducted following the ESM phase. In this phase, psychopathology symptoms were assessed in a manner consistent with that employed in phase one. Differences in recruitment strategies and inclusion criteria between the three different projects are outlined in supporting information. Accessibility To receive the data file, you are required to pre-register your study for the use of the Grief-ID Archive. More details can be found in the Data Access Protocol. Please complete the Data Access Protocol and send it to the designated points of contact listed in the data accessibility instructions. All metadata is openly available. More Information A detailed description of the archive, methodology, and datasets can be found in the accompanying data note: https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12452.80004

Financial overview and grant giving statistics of National Alliance for Children's Grief (NACG)

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a public health crisis, with increases in the number of deaths. As a result, the number of bereaved people has increased significantly. In addition, the measures adopted to control the spread of virus have triggered changes in the subjective and collective bereavement experiences. This systematic literature review aims to summarize and reinterpret the results of qualitative studies on the experience of losing family members during the pandemic by a thematic synthesis. The searches were performed in the Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed/MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and LILACS databases. Among 602 articles identified, 14 were included. Evidence was assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme tool. Two descriptive themes related to the objective were elaborated in addition to one analytical theme, namely: “Pandemic grief: lonely and unresolved”. These themes proved to be interrelated and indicate that experiences of loss in this context were negatively impacted by the imperatives of physical distance, restriction of hospital visits, technology-mediated communication, and prohibition or restriction of funerals. These changes resulted in experiences marked by feelings of loneliness and helplessness, which should be considered when planning intervention strategies that favor communication between family members with the afflicted loved one and with the health care team, enabling welcoming and creating alternatives for farewell rituals. The findings may support further research to test intervention protocols, especially to guide public policies and promote psychological support to bereaved family members after their loss.

This statistic shows the response of individuals in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2015, when asked if they agree or disagree with the statements on dying, death and bereavement. The majority of individuals agree that their quality of life is more important than how long they live for.

Objective: This study assessed the validity of the Indicator of Bereavement Adaptation Cruse Scotland (IBACS). Designed for use in clinical and non-clinical settings, the IBACS measures severity of grief symptoms and risk of developing complications. Method: N=196 (44 male, 152 female) help-seeking, bereaved Scottish adults participated at two timepoints: T1 (baseline) and T2 (after 18 months). Four validated assessment instruments were administered: CORE-R, ICG-R, IES-R, SCL-90-R. Discriminative ability was assessed using ROC curve analysis. Concurrent validity was tested through correlation analysis at T1. Predictive validity was assessed using correlation analyses and ROC curve analysis. Optimal IBACS cutoff values were obtained by calculating a maximal Youden index J in ROC curve analysis. Clinical implications were compared across instruments. Results: ROC curve analysis results (AUC = .84, p <.01, 95% CI between .77 and .90) indicated the IBACS is a good diagnostic instrument for assessing complicated grief. Positive correlations (p < .01, 2-tailed) with all four instruments at T1 demonstrated the IBACS' concurrent validity, strongest with complicated grief measures (r =.82). Predictive validity was shown to be fair in T2 ROC curve analysis results (n = 67, AUC= .78, 95% CI between .65 and .92; p < .01). Predictive validity was also supported by stable positive correlations between IBACS and other instruments at T2. Clinical indications were found not to differ across instruments. Conclusions: The IBACS offers effective grief symptom and risk assessment for use by non-clinicians. Indications are sufficient to support intake assessment for a stepped model of bereavement intervention.Keywords: intake assessment, bereavement intervention, grief, counseling, validation The variabele 'ICI' represents the IBACS score.The depositor provided the files 'IBACS Data storage form' and 'Read Me' in DOCX format. DANS added the PDF format of these files.The depositor provided the file 'ICI_valid_(final)' in SAV format. DANS added the POR and DTA formats of this file.

The dataset contains longitudinal survey data that was used to examine latent trajectories of prolonged grief, posttraumatic stress, and major depression symptoms. In addition, the data was used to examine whether background and loss-related characteristics predict trajectory membership. In our paper titled "Trajectories of grief-related psychopathology: A decade after the MH17 plane disaster", 299 MH17 bereaved people are included. Here in DANS, the dataset contains data from 292 MH17 bereaved people, because 7 people did not provide consent to any of their data being shared. Participants were eligible to participate if they were 18 years old or older, could understand either Dutch or English, and lost one or more loved ones during the MH17 plane disaster on July 17 2014. The data were collected 11, 22, 31, 42, 67, 79, 88, and 103 months after the MH17 plane disaster. During each wave of the study, prolonged grief, posttraumatic stress, and major depression symptoms were assessed, using the Traumatic Grief Inventory Self-Report (TGI-SR), the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), and Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology Self-Report (QIDS-SR16), respectively. Waves one through five took place before, waves six and seven during, and wave eight after the criminal trial. The following background and loss-related characteristics were dichotomized and are included in the dataset: biological sex, level of education, relationship to the deceased, and number of losses. Accessibility Due to the sensitive nature of the dataset, the data can be viewed upon reasonable request.

Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) is a large multi-wave prospective study of spousal bereavement. Face-to-face baseline interviews with married older adults in the Detroit, Michigan standardized metropolitan statistical area (SMSA) were conducted between June 1987 and April 1988, and follow-up interviews were conducted at six months (Wave 1), 18 months (Wave 2), and 48 months (Wave 3) after a spouse's death. Each widowed person was assigned a same-age, same-sex, same-race matched control from the baseline sample. Controls were interviewed again at each of the three follow-ups as well. Spousal loss was monitored using state-provided monthly death records and through daily obituaries from local area newspapers. The National Death Index (NDI) and direct ascertainment of death certificates were used to confirm all deaths. The primary strength of the CLOC study is its ability to measure spousal bereavement quantitatively. For this purpose a global grief scale and six grief subscales, unique to the CLOC study, were prepared. Depression was measured for all respondents with conceptualizations of depression at each wave, as well as major depressive episodes according to DSM-III-R criteria. Other survey questions focused on the social, psychological, and physical functioning of older adults (e.g., demographic, financial, housing, life events, social support, work and activities, marriage and family, religion, health and well-being). For a portion of the respondents (n = 432) in what was referred to as the MacBat study, various biomedical indicators (motor and cognitive, physiological, endocrinological and biochemical) were measured as well. The CLOC study has been subset into four primary datasets. The core, or Complete, dataset (Part 1) contains all available variables from all four waves of the study (Baseline, W1, W2, W3) for the entire sample of 1,532 persons (excluding clones, the 13 individuals who initially participated in a follow-up interview as control subjects, but who subsequently experienced spousal loss, and then entered the study as bereaved subjects). The Baseline Only dataset (Part 2) contains all variables collected at the baseline interview (V1-V957) for the entire sample of 1,532 persons (excluding clones). It also contains the baseline physiological variables (V20001-V20991) from the subsample of 432 persons who also participated in the baseline MacBat portion of the study. The Widowed-Controls Only datasets (Parts 3 and 4) contain all available data from anyone who participated as either a widowed person or a control subject in at least one of the three CLOC follow-up surveys (W1, W2, W3). This dataset is available with or without clones (n = 558 subjects including clones, and n= 545 excluding clones). The Couples Only dataset (Part 5) contains data collected from both the husband and the wife of 423 couples (n = 846) and includes all available data from all four waves of data collection (baseline, W1, W2, W3). Each record contains data for the wife (the "V" variables) and data for the husband (the "S" variables). A Clones Only dataset (Part 6) is also included for the advanced user and contains data for the 13 individuals identified as clones. A case-control matched design is recommended for analysis of the Clones Only data.

The dataset contains longitudinal survey data that was used to examine the reciprocal associations between prolonged grief symptoms and state anger levels. In addition, the data were used to explore whether aspects related to the criminal justice system were related to prolonged grief symptoms and state anger levels. In our paper titled "Reciprocal relations between prolonged grief and anger in homicidally bereaved people involved in a criminal trial: A four-wave cross-lagged panel model", 237 MH17 bereaved people are included. Here in DANS, the dataset contains data from 225 MH17 bereaved people, because 12 people did not provide consent to any of their data being shared. Participants were eligible to participate if they were 18 years old or older, could understand either Dutch or English, and lost one or more loved ones during the MH17 plane disaster that took place on July 17 2014. The data were collected 67, 79, 88, and 103 months after the MH17 plane disaster. During each wave of the study, prolonged grief symptoms and state anger levels were assessed, using the Traumatic Grief Inventory Self-Report Plus (TGI-SR+) and the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory 2 (STAXI-II), respectively. The first wave took place before, the second and third during, and the fourth after the criminal trial. Various characteristics of the criminal trial were assessed at different waves, including whether the participant received monetary compensation and delivered a victim impact statement, how satisfied the participant was with different professionals and the verdict, and the number of statements the participant listened to. Accessibility Due to the sensitive nature of the dataset, the data can be viewed upon reasonable request.

The dataset originates from a study that used Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM) to assess Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) symptoms in daily life among bereaved people whose loved one died due to potentially traumatic circumstances (i.e., homicide, suicide, accident). Participants completed ESM items on PGD as well as contextual factors (e.g., “who are you with?”) five times daily over a two-week period. Before and after the ESM phase, participants completed online surveys assessing among others their symptomatology of PGD, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression using retrospective measures. More information about the procedure can be found at: Pociūnaitė-Ott, J., & Lenferink, L. (2024). A FAIR intense longitudinal data archive on prolonged grief in daily life. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12452.80004 This data is associated with: L.I.M. Lenferink; J. Pociūnaitė-Ott, 2025, "Grief in Daily life Archive (Grief-ID Archive)", https://doi.org/10.17026/SS/LNFAXI, DANS Data Station Social Sciences and Humanities, V2, UNF:6:lwOlVLKAoyhfY5H5PPiygw== [fileUNF]

BackgroundAdolescents commonly experience loss due to death, and perceived closeness to the deceased can often increase the intensity of bereavement. Adolescents and early young adult (AeYA) oncology patients may recall previous losses or experience new losses, possibly of other children with cancer, while coping with their own increased risk of mortality. The bereavement experiences of AeYA patients are not well described in the literature.Methods and findingsThis analysis of bereavement sought to describe the prevalence and types of losses, the support following a death, and the impact of loss on AeYAs aged 13–21 years with malignant disease (or a hematologic disorder requiring allogeneic transplant). Participants were receiving active oncologic therapy or had completed therapy within the past 3 years. Participants completed a bereavement questionnaire and inventories on depression, anxiety, and somatization. The cross-sectional study enrolled 153 AeYAs (95% participation), most (88%) of whom had experienced a loss due to death. The most commonly reported losses were of a grandparent (58%) or friend (37%). Peer deaths were predominantly cancer related (66%). Many participants (39%) self-identified a loss as "very significant.” As loss significance increased, AeYAs were more likely to report that it had changed their life “a lot/enormously” (P<0.0001), that they were grieving “slowly or never got over it” (P<0.0001), and that they felt a need for more professional help (P = 0.026). Peer loss was associated with increased risk of adverse psychological outcomes (P = 0.029), as was parental loss (P = 0.018).ConclusionsMost AeYAs with serious illness experience the grief process as slow or ongoing. Peer or parental loss was associated with increased risk of negative mental health outcomes. Given the high prevalence of peer loss, screening for bereavement problems is warranted in AeYAs with cancer, and further research on grief and bereavement is needed in AeYAs with serious illness.

Using population data from Norway, we examine the effects of stress induced by the death of the mother's parent during pregnancy on both the short-run and the long-run outcomes of the infant. Using a variety of empirical strategies to address the issue of nonrandom exposure to death during a pregnancy, we find small negative effects on birth outcomes. However, we find no evidence of adverse effects on adult outcomes. This suggests that, though there may be measurable effects on birth outcomes, acute psychological stressors during pregnancy have limited adverse consequences for the child's success in education and the labor market. (JEL I12, J13, J16)

Despite the apparent centrality of guilt in complicating reactions following bereavement, scientific investigation has been limited. Establishing the impact of specific components associated with guilt could enhance understanding. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between two guilt-related manifestations, namely self-blame and regret, with grief and depression.A longitudinal investigation was conducted 4-7 months, 14 months and 2 years post-loss. Participants were bereaved spouses (30 widows; 30 widowers); their mean age was 53.05 years. Results showed that self-blame was associated with grief at the initial time-point and with its decline over time. Such associations were not found for depression. Initial levels of regret were neither associated with initial levels of grief and depression, nor were they related to the decline over time in either outcome variable. These results demonstrate the importance of examining guilt-related manifestations independently, over time, and with respect to both generic and grief-specific outcome variables. A main conclusion is that self-blame (but not regret) is a powerful determinant of grief- specific difficulties following the loss of a loved one. Implications for intervention are considered.For guilt and grief, scale scores were calculated by adding the respective single items.

This data package contains: Document describing data cleaning (in Dutch), Anonymized data for SPSS. Syntaxes and outputs belonging to the published article: 2 SPSS syntaxes. One for general analyses and one for creating Mplus data file. Mplus output files ((per analysis) output files contain the syntaxes). Abstract from paper: Prolonged grief disorder, characterized by severe, persistent and disabling grief, has recently been added to the DSM-5-TR and ICD-11. Treatment for prolonged grief symptoms shows limited effectiveness. It has been suggested that prolonged grief symptoms exacerbate insomnia symptoms, whereas insomnia symptoms, in turn, may fuel prolonged grief symptoms. To help clarify if treating sleep disturbances may be a viable treatment option for prolonged grief disorder, we examined the proposed reciprocal relationship between symptoms of prolonged grief and insomnia. On three time points across six-month intervals, 343 bereaved adults (88% female) completed questionnaires to assess prolonged grief, depression, and insomnia symptoms. We applied random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RICLPMs) to assess reciprocal within-person effects between prolonged grief and insomnia symptoms and, as a secondary aim, between depression and insomnia symptoms. Changes in insomnia symptoms predicted changes in prolonged grief symptoms but not vice versa. Additionally, changes in depression and insomnia symptoms showed a reciprocal relationship. Our results suggest that targeting insomnia symptoms after bereavement is a viable option for improving current treatments for prolonged grief disorder.

The Population Research Laboratory (PRL) administered the 2014 Alberta Survey B. This survey of households across the province of Alberta continues to enable academic researchers, government departments, and non-profit organizations to explore a wide range of topics in a structured research framework and environment. Sponsors’ research questions are asked together with demographic questions in a telephone interview of Alberta households.

BackgroundThe long-term trajectories of prolonged grief are poorly understood. The aims were to examine the course of grief among bereaved disaster survivors up to six years post loss and factors predicting worse bereavement outcome. A third aim was to explore differences in grief indicators between trajectories.MethodsBereaved Swedish tourists who survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis responded to surveys including the Inventory of Complicated Grief 1 to 6 years after the disaster. Latent growth mixture modeling was used to identify longitudinal trajectories of grief. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to examine predictors of class membership.ResultsThree trajectories were identified: resilient (41% of the sample), recovering (48%), and chronic (11%). The strongest predictor of chronic grief was the loss of one’s child. When examining grief indicators, the chronic trajectory was characterized by not accepting the loss, while yearning was common in all trajectories.ConclusionsThis study highlights the importance of considering how traumatically bereaved individuals can be affected by loss for several years after a disaster, especially after losing one’s child. An inability to accept the loss, more so than yearning, appears to characterize bereaved survivors at risk of a chronic trajectory of grief.

Abstract Objective: to understand mothers' bereavement experiences regarding the loss of their newborn child in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of a Brazilian university hospital. Methods: the study was designed by the clinical-qualitative method to understand the meaning of the emerging relationships of health scenarios. Sample consisted of six mothers. The sufficiency of the sample was verified through the saturation of the data. The data collection instrument was a semistructured interview with script of open questions, the collected material was recorded and transcribed in full. Thematic analysis was performed by two independent authors. Results: feelings and perceptions of the grieving process gave rise to three categories: 1. Guilt and fantasy of bereavement related to the death and grief for their children; 2. Relationships and ambiguities - the relationship between internal concerns and perception of external relations; 3. Fear, disbelief, abandonment and loneliness - questions about perception of the external environment. Conclusions: mothers' bereavement experience is mainly permeated by loneliness and abandonment related to feelings of guilt for not being able to keep their children alive. The difficult and definitive separation in the postpartum period, caused by death, brings fantasies of reunion with their child. Women show the need to realize grief, especially by recognizing their baby's identity.