Death Bereavement Behaviours
Death is part of an inevitable process of life. Almost everyone will have to go through a certain stage of their life, in particular facing death of their own or even their love ones. Upon the time of death of a person, of which in our study and observation, we look into the behaviour and reaction of people when facing death of a person and the feeling of loss and bereavement.
Penson, J. (1990) stated that bereavement means “to be robbed of something valued”. She also reiterated that bereavement can be defined as someone or something has been taken away against your will or unwillingly, of which it caused a person to feel bereaved. Nevertheless, knowledge in understanding the behaviours of those bereaved are certainly very important for nurses, not only in the clinical practice, but also as part of the basic nursing care and health education teaching for the people. Working with bereaved people is without doubt a huge challenge for most student nurses, and even some are oblivious in handling such situations.
During our observation in the hospital, we were observing on the behaviours of the relatives of the deceased at the time of the death. We were also informed that the death were not quite anticipated as the deceased succumbed to her death due to an accident occurred few days earlier. At that particular time of her death, the deceased husband was seen sitting next to her while reading some prayers to her ears as tears running down his cheek. The deceased mother was seen accompanying her husband. A short moment later, she stopped breathing and her husband called in the doctor and nurse to check her condition. Unfortunately, she was pronounced dead when the doctor attended to her. The deceased mother was seen crying ‘hysterically' and held her hands tight while uttering words of denial and guilt that her child should not have died in this way. On the other hand, her husband looked as if he was suppressing his sadness by not expressing his emotions in contrast with his mother-in-law. A friend who was there at that moment tried her best to coax the husband and the mother of the deceased and was seen crying with the family of the deceased.
What we can see here is the chronological order of the events that took place in one of the wards we had intended to observe the behaviours. In addition to that, the death of the patient can be termed as a sudden death or an unanticipated death, of which many of those who experienced from such situations will have a traumatic feeling. From the events reported earlier, there are several theories of behaviour that can be used to describe and explain such manners at the time of death of a person. In addition to that, before explaining the theories involved in explaining the behaviours, it is also very important to understand the process of bereavement as mentioned by Parkes (1972). Parkes stated that bereavement can be divided simply into four phases, they are: Phase 1 (shock, numbness and pain of grieving), Phase 2 (manifestations of fear, guilt, anger and resentment), Phase 3 (Disengagement, apathy and aimlessness) and lastly, Phase 4 (gradual hope and more in new directions).
Just another quote from a famous Greek philosopher in relation with death, loss and grief,
“To fear death, gentlemen, is nothing other than to think oneself wise when one is not, for it is to think on knows what one does not know. No man knows whether death may not turn out to be the greatest of blessings for a human being, and yet people fear it as if they knew for certain that it is the greatest of all evils.”
(cited from Penson, J. (1993). Bereavement - A Guide for Nurses. London: Chapman & Hall. pg 1)
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