In 2016, over 6.6 million children died globally, and 245 children died in Singapore. Chronic illnesses are prevalent causes of child mortality around the world. Despite growing research that examines the lived experience of parents bereaved by their child’s chronic life-threatening illness, there is no such study within the Asian context. To bridge this knowledge gap, meaning-oriented, strength-focused interviews were conducted with 25 parental units (i.e. 6 couples, 13 lone mothers, 4 lone fathers, and 2 primary parental figures) who lost their child to chronic life-threatening illness in Singapore (N = 31), including those of Chinese (n = 17), Malay (n = 10) and Indian ethnicities (n = 4), between August 2017 and April 2018. Data analysis adhering to the grounded theory approach revealed 7 themes and 25 sub-themes that were organized into a Trauma-to-Transformation Model of Parental Bereavement. This model shows the major milestones in participants’ lived experience of their child’s chronic life-threatening illness and death, starting from the diagnosis of their child’s chronic life-threatening illness and the subsequent emotional turmoil (Theme 1), the mourning of their child’s death and the losses which accompanied the death (Theme 3) and participants’ experience of posttraumatic growth through reflection of their journey of caregiving and child loss (Theme 5). The model further describes the deliberate behaviors or ‘rituals’ that helped participants to regain power over their lives (Theme 2), sustain an intimate bond with their child beyond death (Theme 4), and transcend their loss by deriving positive outcomes from their experience (Theme 6). Finally, the model denotes that the lived experiences and well-being of participants were embedded within the health-and-social-care ecosystem, and in turn impacted by it (Theme 7). These themes and their corresponding sub-themes are discussed, with recommendations for enhancing culturally sensitive support services for grieving Asian parents around the globe.

中文翻译：

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创伤到转型：新加坡患有慢性威胁生命疾病的丧亲父母的亲身经历

2016年，全球有660万儿童死亡，新加坡有245名儿童死亡。慢性病是全世界儿童死亡的普遍原因。尽管有越来越多的研究调查了父母因孩子的慢性威胁生命的疾病而丧生的经历，但在亚洲背景下却没有这样的研究。为了弥合这一知识鸿沟，我们对25个父母单位（即6对夫妇，13个单身母亲，4个单身父亲和2个主要父母身分）进行了以意义为导向，注重力量的采访，这些人失去了孩子，成为慢性病，危及生命。在2017年8月至2018年4月期间，新加坡（N = 31），包括华裔（n = 17），马来（n = 10）和印度裔（n = 4）。坚持扎根理论方法的数据分析揭示了7个主题和25个子主题，它们被组织成父母亲丧的创伤转化模型。该模型显示了参与者对孩子的威胁生命的慢性疾病和死亡的生活经历中的重要里程碑，从诊断孩子的威胁生命的慢性疾病和随后的情感动荡（主题1）开始，哀悼孩子的死亡以及伴随死亡的损失（主题3）和参与者通过照看和失去孩子的经历经历的创伤后成长经历（主题5）。该模型进一步描述了蓄意的行为或“仪式”，这些行为或行为帮助参与者重新获得一生的权力（主题2），与孩子保持紧密的联系，直至死亡（主题4），并通过从他们的经验中得出积极的结果来超越他们的损失（主题6）。最后，该模型表明，参与者的生活经验和福祉被嵌入到卫生和社会护理生态系统中，并进而受到其影响（主题7）。讨论了这些主题及其相应的子主题，并提出了一些建议，以增强对全球范围内悲伤的亚洲父母的文化敏感性支持服务。