Traditional theories of grief suggest that individuals experience short-term increases in depressive symptoms following the death of a parent. However, growing evidence indicates that effects of parental bereavement may persist. Situating the short- and long-term effects of parental death within the life course perspective, we assess the combined influence of time since loss and life course stage at bereavement on mental health for maternal and paternal death. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 11,877) to examine biological parental death from childhood to mid-adulthood, we find that those who experience recent maternal or paternal death have heightened depressive symptoms. Furthermore, those who experience maternal death in childhood or paternal death in young adulthood exhibit long-term consequences for mental health. Our findings underscore the theoretical importance of early life course stages and parent’s gender when determining whether depressive symptoms persist following parental bereavement.

传统的悲伤理论表明，在父母去世后，个人的抑郁症状会出现短期增加。然而，越来越多的证据表明，父母丧亲之痛的影响可能会持续存在。将父母死亡的短期和长期影响置于生命历程的角度，我们评估了失去亲人后的时间和丧亲后的生命历程阶段对母亲和父亲死亡的心理健康的综合影响。使用来自全国青少年到成人健康纵向研究 (N = 11,877) 的数据来检查从童年到成年中期的生物父母死亡，我们发现那些最近经历过母亲或父亲死亡的人的抑郁症状加重。此外，那些在童年时期经历过产妇死亡或在成年后经历过父亲死亡的人会对心理健康产生长期影响。我们的研究结果强调了在确定父母丧亲后抑郁症状是否持续存在时，早期生命历程阶段和父母性别的理论重要性。