Short‐term professional bereavement reactions and their links with the meaning of patient death: Evidence from network analyses

Abstract

Objectives

Taking a dimensional view, this study aims to understand, among professional caregivers after patient deaths, the symptom distribution and development of the short-term bereavement reaction (SBR) network and the node-level links between the meaning of patient death (MPD) and the SBR network.

Methods

A cross-sectional secondary analysis was conducted with existing data from 220 Chinese urban hospital nurses and physicians who experienced the most recent patient death within a month. MPD was measured by the 10 formative items of the meaning of patient death model, and SBR was measured by the Short-term Bereavement Reactions Subscale of the Professional Bereavement Scale. Both Gaussian graphical network analysis and Bayesian network analysis were applied to the SBR network, and Gaussian graphical network analysis was used to estimate the MPD-SBR network.

Results

Frustrated and guilty are central nodes in the regularized partial correlation SBR network. Meanwhile, a traumatic event and failure at work are important bridge nodes between the MPD network and the SBR network. In the Bayesian SBR network, moved by the family's understanding, moved by the family's gratitude and sad mainly drive other nodes.

Conclusion

After a patient death, nurses' and physicians' SBR networks feature professional-dimension symptoms at their core, while they follow ‘personal to professional’ and ‘concrete to abstract’ symptom development patterns. The personal meaning of a traumatic event and the professional meaning of a failure at work play key roles in bridging the MPD and SBR networks, and meanings of both the personal and the professional dimensions can link to professional-dimension reactions.

Reporting Method

The manuscript followed the STROBE checklist for reporting cross-sectional studies.

Patient or Public Contribution

No patient or public contribution.