Embedded Files
measures of attachment to the companion animal, such as the Owner-Pet Relationship Scale (Winefield, Black, & Chur-Hansen, 2008), may demonstrate attachment to be a predictive variable. It would also be valuable to explore the views and experiences of health care professionals and religious leaders. Views from the wider commu- A. Chur-Hansen et al. / Society & Animals 19 (2011) 248-260 259 nity about companion animal death and mourning rituals would also be informative. While only three providers participated in this study, it should be understood that a total of five such providers was available to participate in the study. Such providers should themselves be the focus of future research, in order to better understand the important role they play, to consider the ways in which their work may impact their personal and professional lives, and to determine how assisting grieving companion caretakers might be best managed. This research is necessarily exploratory in nature. There are no quantitative data available regarding how many people cremate their companion animals, or any similar data on their demographic characteristics. There are no data on people’s awareness about cremations and their availability or their attitudes toward, and preferences for, human rites and rituals for companion animals. This information should be collected in future research so that modern Western society can more sensitively respond to bereaved caretakers of companion animals during their time of loss. Acknowledgments The authors are indebted to the participants who shared their experiences for this research and to the veterinarians who assisted in the recruitment of participants. Anne Francis Black and Amanda Gierasch were awarded a University of Adelaide Faculty of Health Sciences Summer Vacation Research Scholarship to conduct this research, and they were supervised by Helen Winefield and Anna Chur-Hansen. References Adams, C. L., Bonnett, B. N., & Meek, A. H. (1999). Owner response to companion animal death: Development of a theory and practical implications. Canadian Veterinary Journal, 40(1), 33-39. —— (2000). Predictors of owner response to companion animal death in 177 clients from 14 practices in Ontario. Journal of the American Veterinary Association, 217(9), 1303-1309. Brown, K. (2006). Pastoral concern in relation to the psychological stress caused by the death of a companion animal. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 9(5), 411-422. Clements, P. T., Benasutti, K. M., & Carmone, A. (2003). Support for bereaved owners of pets. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 39(2), 49-54. Field, N. P., Orsini, L., Gavish, R., & Packman, W. (2009). Role of attachment in resp Cremation and Grief: Are Ways of Commemorating the Dead Related to Adjustment Over Time? John Birrell1 , Henk Schut2 , Margaret Stroebe2,3 , Daniel Anadria3 , Cate Newsom1 , Kate Woodthorpe1 , Hannah Rumble1 , Anne Corden4 , and Yvette Smith5 Abstract Funeral services are known to serve multiple functions for bereaved persons. There is also a common, intuitively reasonable assumption of positive associations between engaging in funeral activities and adjustment to bereavement. We examined whether restricting ceremonial cremation arrangements to a minimum has a negative association with grief over time. Bereaved persons in the United Kingdom completed questionnaires 2 to 5 months postloss and again a year later (N ¼ 233 with complete data; dropout ¼ 11.4%). Neither type nor elaborateness of the cremation service, nor satisfaction with arrangements (typically high), emerged as significantly related to grief; no major subgroup differences (e.g., according to income level) were found. 1 Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath, Claverton Down, UK 2 Department of Clinical Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands 3 Department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands 4 Social Policy Research Unit, University of York, Heslington, UK 5 DignityUK, Sutton Coldfield, UK Corresponding Author: Margaret Stroebe, Department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands. Email: M.S.Stroebe@UU.NL OMEGA—Journal of Death and Dying 2020, Vol. 81(3) 370–392 ! The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0030222820919253 journals.sagepub.com/home/ome Results suggested that it does not matter to grief whether a more minimalistic or elaborate funeral ceremony was observed. We concluded that the funeral industry represented in this investigation is offering bereaved people the range of choices regarding cremation arrangements to meet their needs. Limits to generalizability are discussed. Keywords grief, bereavement, mourning, cremation, funeral There are considerable differences among bereaved persons in intensities of grief and the course of their adjustment over time. Researchers have therefore prioritized the examination of the so-called risk factors, ones which are associated with the development of higher levels and/or longer duration of grief. A major aim of such studies has been to identify those most likely to experience trouble during their grieving, in order to focus on persons at high
Report abuse