Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Bereaved: A Study of Bereaved Weibo Users

Nuo Han; Gewei Chen; Sijia Li; Feng Huang; Xiaoyang Wang; Xiaopeng Ren; Tingshao Zhu

doi:10.3390/healthcare9060724

Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Bereaved: A Study of Bereaved Weibo Users

Nuo Han
, Gewei Chen
, Sijia Li
, Feng Huang
, Xiaoyang Wang
, Xiaopeng Ren^*
, Tingshao Zhu^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

17 Downloads (CityUHK Scholars)

Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic may significantly affect the experiences of death and bereavement. This study aimed to learn from recent outbreaks of infectious diseases and further understand their impacts on bereavement. We obtained psychological status scores for 32 individuals bereaved due to COVID-19 and 127 individuals bereaved due to non-COVID-19 causes using the online ecological recognition (OER) approach. Next, a sentiment analysis and independent sample t-test were performed to examine the differences between these two groups. The results indicated that the individuals bereaved due to COVID-19 were more insecure and more preoccupied with the grief of the moment than those bereaved due to non-COVID-19 reasons, while the latter group had higher depression scores than the former group. This study can guide policy-makers and clinical practitioners to provide more targeted and sustainable post-bereavement support for both bereaved groups during the COVID-19 period. © 2021 by the authors.

Original language	English
Article number	724
Number of pages	11
Journal	Healthcare (Switzerland)
Volume	9
Issue number	6
Online published	12 Jun 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9060724
Publication status	Published - Jun 2021
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Funding

Funding: The China Social Science Fund (17AZD041) and the National Social Science Fund of China project (20BSH142).

Research Keywords

Bereavement
COVID-19
Mental health
OER
Public health
Social media

Publisher's Copyright Statement

This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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title = "Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Bereaved: A Study of Bereaved Weibo Users",

abstract = "The global COVID-19 pandemic may significantly affect the experiences of death and bereavement. This study aimed to learn from recent outbreaks of infectious diseases and further understand their impacts on bereavement. We obtained psychological status scores for 32 individuals bereaved due to COVID-19 and 127 individuals bereaved due to non-COVID-19 causes using the online ecological recognition (OER) approach. Next, a sentiment analysis and independent sample t-test were performed to examine the differences between these two groups. The results indicated that the individuals bereaved due to COVID-19 were more insecure and more preoccupied with the grief of the moment than those bereaved due to non-COVID-19 reasons, while the latter group had higher depression scores than the former group. This study can guide policy-makers and clinical practitioners to provide more targeted and sustainable post-bereavement support for both bereaved groups during the COVID-19 period. {\textcopyright} 2021 by the authors.",

keywords = "Bereavement, COVID-19, Mental health, OER, Public health, Social media",

author = "Nuo Han and Gewei Chen and Sijia Li and Feng Huang and Xiaoyang Wang and Xiaopeng Ren and Tingshao Zhu",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.",

year = "2021",

month = jun,

doi = "10.3390/healthcare9060724",

language = "English",

volume = "9",

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}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Bereaved

T2 - A Study of Bereaved Weibo Users

AU - Han, Nuo

AU - Chen, Gewei

AU - Li, Sijia

AU - Huang, Feng

AU - Wang, Xiaoyang

AU - Ren, Xiaopeng

AU - Zhu, Tingshao

PY - 2021/6

Y1 - 2021/6

N2 - The global COVID-19 pandemic may significantly affect the experiences of death and bereavement. This study aimed to learn from recent outbreaks of infectious diseases and further understand their impacts on bereavement. We obtained psychological status scores for 32 individuals bereaved due to COVID-19 and 127 individuals bereaved due to non-COVID-19 causes using the online ecological recognition (OER) approach. Next, a sentiment analysis and independent sample t-test were performed to examine the differences between these two groups. The results indicated that the individuals bereaved due to COVID-19 were more insecure and more preoccupied with the grief of the moment than those bereaved due to non-COVID-19 reasons, while the latter group had higher depression scores than the former group. This study can guide policy-makers and clinical practitioners to provide more targeted and sustainable post-bereavement support for both bereaved groups during the COVID-19 period. © 2021 by the authors.

AB - The global COVID-19 pandemic may significantly affect the experiences of death and bereavement. This study aimed to learn from recent outbreaks of infectious diseases and further understand their impacts on bereavement. We obtained psychological status scores for 32 individuals bereaved due to COVID-19 and 127 individuals bereaved due to non-COVID-19 causes using the online ecological recognition (OER) approach. Next, a sentiment analysis and independent sample t-test were performed to examine the differences between these two groups. The results indicated that the individuals bereaved due to COVID-19 were more insecure and more preoccupied with the grief of the moment than those bereaved due to non-COVID-19 reasons, while the latter group had higher depression scores than the former group. This study can guide policy-makers and clinical practitioners to provide more targeted and sustainable post-bereavement support for both bereaved groups during the COVID-19 period. © 2021 by the authors.

KW - Bereavement

KW - COVID-19

KW - Mental health

KW - OER

KW - Public health

KW - Social media

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U2 - 10.3390/healthcare9060724

DO - 10.3390/healthcare9060724

M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal

C2 - 34204707

AN - SCOPUS:85108635736

SN - 2227-9032

VL - 9

JO - Healthcare (Switzerland)

JF - Healthcare (Switzerland)

IS - 6

M1 - 724

ER -

Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Bereaved: A Study of Bereaved Weibo Users

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Research Keywords

Publisher's Copyright Statement

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