Identifying experiences of grief in an Addictions Service v1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Identifying and exploring grief in parents who have had children removed from their care within Addictions Services: A pilot study.
IRAS ID
206476
Contact name
Ruth M Anderson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Lanarkshire
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 2 months, 22 days
Research summary
Do parents within Addictions Services experience a negative grief reaction following the removal of their child from their care?
Grief is an emotional response to a loss. For the majority of people, the emotional intensity of their grief reduces over time as they make sense of their loss. There are a number of cognitions that have been identified during grief that make the process more complicated including; negative impact on view of self, world, others and the future, self-blame, disenfranchised grief (not socially recognised) and the perception of their grief reaction. Qualitative studies have highlighted that parent’s who have had a child removed experience grief with many of these complicating factors, such as blame and lack of social supports. To the researchers knowledge, there has been no quantitative research using grief measures with parents who have had a child removed. This research aims to use a formal measure of grief cognitions to identify if parents are having difficulty grieving. It is hoped that this research will help inform approaches to support parent’s recovery.
Participants will be recruited from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde North West Community Addictions Team and Psychologist within the wider team. All participants will have past or current addiction to alcohol and/or drugs. There will be three groups; (1) parents who have had a child removed from their care, (2) people who have on-going grief following bereavement, and (3) people who have processed their grief following bereavement. The participants will be asked to complete three self-report questionnaires (1) asking about their negative cognitions following a loss (2) a mood measure and (3) about their alcohol and drug use. The three groups will be compared on these measures to explore their different grief experiences. This will mean any similarities or differences in experiences of loss can be considered.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 4
REC reference
16/WS/0195
Date of REC Opinion
13 Dec 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion