What are the long-term effects of child loss on parental health? Social integration as mediator.,Comprehensive Psychiatry

当前位置： X-MOL 学术 › Compr. Psychiatry › 论文详情

Our official English website, www.x-mol.net, welcomes your feedback! (Note: you will need to create a separate account there.)

What are the long-term effects of child loss on parental health? Social integration as mediator.
Comprehensive Psychiatry ( IF 7.3 ) Pub Date : 2020-05-08 , DOI: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2020.152182
Xintong Zhao ₁ , Hongwei Hu ₂ , Yi Zhou ₃ , Yang Bai ₄

Affiliation

BACKGROUND Some bereaved parents experience a decreasing trajectory of grief, while others fail to adapt over the long term and persistently suffer from negative health consequences. This study investigates the mediating role of social integration in the relationship between losing an only child and parental health in a family-oriented society. METHOD A sample of 1828 bereaved parents and 4739 non-bereaved parents was drawn from a 10-city survey in China. Regression methods were used to examine the impact of child loss on parental health, and Sobel test was applied to examine the mediating role of social integration. RESULTS Bereaved parents who lost their only child have worse self-rated health and more negative affect than the non-bereaved parents, which lasted for years after the death of the only child. The Sobel test shows that 24.8% of the total effects on self-rated health and 6.7% of the total effects on negative affect can be explained via decreased social integration. The gender of parents and child as well as fertility intentions are important sources of heterogeneity in the Chinese culture. LIMITATION The results based on cross-sectional data may only reveal correlation rather than causality. The data was retrieved from self-reported questionnaires and there is a lack of objective measures of parental health. Moreover, the detailed mechanisms behind how child loss resulted in less social integration should be further explored. CONCLUSIONS Significant disparities in health outcomes and social integration were found for bereaved parents relative to the non-bereaved parents. Future work is needed to assess the health of bereaved parents, identify the vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, and design inclusive intervention programs.

更新日期：2020-05-08

点击分享查看原文

点击收藏

公开下载

阅读更多本刊最新论文本刊介绍/投稿指南

全部期刊列表>>