Managing Grief of Bereaved Families During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan

Yoko Matsuda; Yoshitake Takebayashi; Satomi Nakajima; Masaya Ito

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.637237

Managing Grief of Bereaved Families During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan

Front Psychiatry. 2021 Jun 4:12:637237. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.637237. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Yoko Matsuda¹, Yoshitake Takebayashi^{1

2}, Satomi Nakajima³, Masaya Ito¹

Affiliations

¹ National Center of Cognitive-Behavior Therapy and Research, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Japan.
² Department Health Risk Communication, School of Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima, Japan.
³ Department of Human Sciences, Faculty of Human Sciences, Musashino University, Koto-ku, Japan.

Abstract

This commentary discussed the psychological issues related to bereavement in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we addressed two aspects in the context of Japanese culture. The first relates to the psychological distress of members of the bereaved family who could not visit their loved ones who had COVID-19 before or after their death. The second relates to the bereavement experience of those who were unable to be with their loved ones when the end came, even though they did not have COVID-19, because of restrictions on visiting hospitals. We seek to focus on the need for a support system for bereaved families to help them through the grieving process, and discuss end-of-life care in such circumstances, and in the post-COVID-19 era, as in current day Japan.

Keywords: COVID-19; ambiguous loss; bereavement; mourning process; prolonged grief.