Stigmatized Bereavement: A Qualitative Study on the Impacts of Stigma for Those Bereaved by a Drug-Related Death

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Author(s)Stout, Joshua H.
Author(s)Fleury-Steiner, Benjamin
Date Accessioned2023-12-04T16:30:26Z
Date Available2023-12-04T16:30:26Z
Publication Date2023-09-19
DescriptionThis article was originally published in OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying. Stout, J. H., & Fleury-Steiner, B. (2023). Stigmatized Bereavement: A Qualitative Study on the Impacts of Stigma for Those Bereaved by a Drug-Related Death. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228231203355. © The Author(s) 2023.
AbstractResearch has given limited attention to family and friends bereaved by a drug-overdose death. To examine the ways in which stigma may uniquely impact the grieving processes of the bereaved, a thematic analysis of 35 semistructured in-depth interviews with family members and adult peers who lost a loved one to an overdose was conducted. Our findings demonstrate that the bereaved experience stigmatization after their loss. Specifically, respondents emphasized stigmatizing interactions with law enforcement, alienation from friends and family, a lack of social support, exchanges that enforced feeling rules, and being confronted by narratives of blame and individual choice as contributing to the degrees of stigmatization they experienced. Our findings highlight how bereavement becomes stigmatized to varying degrees through multiple interactions that have a compounding effect on mourners. We refer to this process as stigmatized bereavement, whereby the frequency of such interactions informs the degree of stigmatization the bereaved faces.
SponsorThe author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
CitationStout, J. H., & Fleury-Steiner, B. (2023). Stigmatized Bereavement: A Qualitative Study on the Impacts of Stigma for Those Bereaved by a Drug-Related Death. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228231203355
ISSN1541-3764
URLhttps://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/33646
Languageen_US
PublisherOMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
Keywordsstigma
Keywordsbereavement
Keywordsdisenfranchised grief
Keywordsdrug-related death
Keywordsdeath
TitleStigmatized Bereavement: A Qualitative Study on the Impacts of Stigma for Those Bereaved by a Drug-Related Death
TypeArticle
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