Sounds of silence. The “special grief” of drug-death bereaved parents: a qualitative study

Abstract

Background

Drug-death bereavement is an understudied topic. We explore what bereaved parents experience after losing their child to drug use. The aim of the paper is to provide knowledge about what drug-death bereaved parents go through and study the kinds of help and support they receive.

Method

Reflexive thematic analysis is used to analyze 14 semi-structured in-depth interviews with Norwegian parents.

Results

We generated four main themes: (I) ‘constant preparedness’ describes the burdensome overload that the parents experienced before death; (II) ‘stigmatization’ represents public and self-induced stigma; (III) ‘emotional overload’ refers to the parents’ complex and ambivalent emotions, such as anger, guilt and shock after the loss; and (IV) ‘complex relations’ describes the parents’ relations with public services and their personal social networks.

Discussion

We discuss how overload, before and after the loss experience, causes a special grief. How this overload, silence from helpers, self-stigma and complicated interactions with social networks contribute to the grief of these parents is also discussed. Potential implications for policy and practice are subsequently outlined.

Keywords:

• Bereavement
• parents
• drug-related death
• grief
• in-depth interviews

Acknowledgements

A special thanks to the bereaved parents for generously sharing their experiences and time.

Disclosure statement

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship or publication of this paper. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.