Parents' reactions to the death of an adult child from cancer

Twenty-four parents whose adult children had died of cancer completed a bereavement questionnaire and the Brief Symptom Inventory an average of 2 years after the death of their children. The parents had experienced growth in a number of areas, and although they had residual levels of grief, few had more psychiatric symptoms than would be found in a normative population. Factors that shaped the response to the loss included the prolonged and debilitating nature of the illness, the sex of the parents and children, and aspects of the parent-child relationship.