AP52347

Science Summary

According to the article "Death of a Parents During Childhood is Associated with Greater Mortality in Early Childhood," a child or teenager that has lost a parent has a greater risk of mortality in the years following the parent's death compared to people unaffected by a parental death during childhood or adolescence (PLOS). This article talks about a study conducted by Jiong Li and her colleagues from Aarhus University in Denmark. They reached their conclusions by studying the national registries from all children born in Denmark from 1968 to 2008, all children born in Sweden from 1973 to 2006, and 89% of children born in Finland from 1987 to 2006. Of all these children, 189,094 (2.6%) of them lost a parent when the child was between six months and eighteen years old. Then they reported all of the children that had died in the follow-up period, which ranged from 1 to 40 years. The researchers found that children that experienced a parent's death had a 50% greater risk of mortality during the study period. The greatest mortality rate was of the children who had lost a parent due to suicide. Also, the age and sex of the children and the parent did not change findings. This information clearly shows that a parent's death has a major impact on a child. In Denise Boyd and Helen Bee's book, they talk about children and teenager's grieving patterns and how they vary little from an adult's (503). "These findings warrant the need for health and social support to the bereaved children and such support may need to cover an extended time period" (PLOS).

References:

PLOS. "Death of a Parents During Childhood is Associated with Greater Mortality in Early Childhood." //ScienceDaily//. ScienceDaily. 22 Jul. 2014. Web. 5 Aug. 2014.

Boyd, Denise, and Helen Bee. //Lifespan// //Development//. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2012. Print.

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