Potential risk or protective factors in bereavementa
| Circumstances of death | Cause of death: sudden, expected, traumatic, suicide |
| Circumstances: multiple losses, witnessing extreme distress in dying phase | |
| Lost relationship: spouse, child | |
| Quality of relationship with deceased | |
| Concurrent stresses: financial hardship resulting from loss | |
| Intrapersonal factors intrinsic to person who is bereaved | Personality style: optimism, high self-esteem, secure attachment |
| Predisposing factors: pre-bereavement depression, previous bereavements | |
| Religious beliefs and other meaning systems | |
| Sociodemographic: widowers, children, ethnic group | |
| Interpersonal factors | Social support: social isolation, cultural and social embedding |
| Economic: income has little effect | |
| Professional support and intervention | |
| Coping strategies | Grief work: sharing, disclosure, avoidance, repression |
| Emotional regulation: combination of confrontation and avoidance | |
↵a Taken from Stroebe et al (2007)2 and reproduced with permission.