ArticleBehavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland)2020
The Endless Grief in Waiting: A Qualitative Study of the Relationship between Ambiguous Loss and Anticipatory Mourning amongst the Relatives of Missing Persons in Italy.
Article in Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Awaiting on the rubble: phenomenological perspectives on ambiguous loss by earthquake survivors.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Waiting between war and loss: a qualitative study on the experience of ambiguous loss among Syrian refugees.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Development and validation of a new yearning induction task: a cross-cultural study of Chinese and Swiss bereaved.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Article
- The unseen scars: prolonged grief among families of soldiers in Debark Town, North Ethiopia.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Collective ambiguous loss after mass hostage-taking in war: exploring public mental health outcomes and resilience.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2024Article
- Self-Help Groups within Nursing Homes: The Experiences of Family Caregivers in Northeastern Italy.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- The Ambiguous Loss Inventory Plus (ALI+): Introduction of a Measure of Psychological Reactions to the Disappearance of a Loved One.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Exploring family experiences of missing persons inquests through the eyes of professionals and the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence.Psychiatry, psychology, and law : an interdisciplinary journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law · 2023Article
- "It was terrible, I didn't sleep for two years": A mixed methods exploration of sleep and its effects among family caregivers of in-home hospice patients at end-of-life.Palliative medicine · 2022Article
- New Psychological Perspectives on Death and Dying-Between Normality and the COVID-19 Emergency.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Anticipatory Mourning and Narrative Meaning-Making in the Younger Breast Cancer Experience: An Application of the Meaning of Loss Codebook.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Spirituality and Children's Coping with Representation of Death During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Qualitative Research with Parents.Pastoral psychology · 2022Article
- Spirituality for Coping with the Trauma of a Loved One's Death During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Italian Qualitative Study.Pastoral psychology · 2022Article
- Counterfactual analysis of the impact of the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic on the reporting and registration of missing people in India.Humanities & social sciences communications · 2022Article
- Self-management experiences of youth following the unexpected loss of a family member to HIV.Health SA = SA Gesondheid · 2022Article
- Reconstructing Social Relationships in a Post-Lockdown Suburban Area of Southern Italy Using Pastoral Counselling.Pastoral psychology · 2022Article
- The Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale and the Inventory of Complicated Spiritual Grief: The Italian Validation of Two Instruments for Meaning-Focused Assessments of Bereavement.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- The COVID-19 Disappeared: From Traumatic to Ambiguous Loss and the Role of the Internet for the Bereaved in Italy.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- Catharsis Through Cinema: An Italian Qualitative Study on Watching Tragedies to Mitigate the Fear of COVID-19.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- A Challenge for Palliative Psychology: Freedom of Choice at the End of Life among the Attitudes of Physicians and Nurses.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This article presents the results of a qualitative study aiming to consider the relationship between ambiguous loss and anticipatory mourning amongst relatives of missing people in Italy. Eight people participated in the research, narrating their experiences of losing a beloved person (one found alive, three found dead, and four still missing). Findings suggest the presence of a particular form of ambiguous loss, characterised by traits typical of both prolonged and traumatic grief. These findings describe how families are faced with an emotional vortex related to a never-ending wait, and how the mourning is solved only when the missing person is found dead or alive. The discovery of a corpse is traumatic but it allows mourners to fully recognise their grief. When a person is found, it changes the relationship in a positive way. When neither of these events happen, mourners have two different kinds of reactions: they experience either a prolonged grief or a drive to solve their suffering by helping other people (post-traumatic growth). In this study, it is highlighted how a community can be useful or detrimental in this process, and the importance of psychological and social support to prevent significant clinical outcomes is stressed.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.