ReviewScoping Review of Memory Making in Bereavement Care for Parents After the Death of a Newborn
Section snippets
Design
Scoping reviews provide a mechanism to clarify concepts, synthesize evidence, and provide focus for future research (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005, Levac et al., 2010). In particular, scoping reviews provide a way to synthesize evidence when significant complexity or heterogeneity in the literature precludes full, systematic reviews (Khalil et al., 2016). Additionally, scoping reviews allow for greater flexibility of inclusion criteria than systematic reviews, which results in a broader view of the
Study Characteristics
Of the 25 studies included in our review, most (n = 20) were qualitative and used a range of approaches, including qualitative description and thematic analysis, phenomenology, and grounded theory. Five were mixed methods studies. The quantitative components of these mixed methods studies were heterogeneous and were not focused on parents’ perceptions of memory making. Given this heterogeneity and the overall purpose of this review, we decided to exclude quantitative data; however, relevant
Discussion
Overall, the results of our scoping review provide evidence that parents valued the opportunity to spend time with their newborns while they were still alive and were grateful for the option of being present during their newborns’ deaths. Spending time with the newborn postmortem was experienced as challenging but was important to many families, whereas failure to spend time with the newborn after death was a source of regret for some families. Most researchers found that holding and touching
Rebecca Thornton, BN, RN, MNSc, is a PhD candidate in the School of Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and a lecturer in nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia.
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Cited by (0)
Rebecca Thornton, BN, RN, MNSc, is a PhD candidate in the School of Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and a lecturer in nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia.
Patricia Nicholson, RN, MEd, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia.
Louise Harms, BSW, MSW, PhD, is a professor and Deputy Head, Department of Social Work, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The authors report no conflict of interest or relevant financial relationships.