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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

grief, sleep, grief group members, death

College

Nursing

Abstract

Grief and bereavement can be defined as experiences created by responses to the loss of a family member or close friend. Such distressing experiences can be amplified by sleep dysfunction because of the devastating effects poor sleep quality has in healthy functioning. In a study done by Richardson, Lund, Caserta, Dudley, and Obray (2003), it was noted that 50 % of a group of 192 bereaved widows and widowers reported sleep disturbance within the first few months after the death of a spouse. Sleep disturbances have been highly correlated with problems such as depression, emotional lability, anger, loss of control, gastrointestinal upset, visual motor changes, large and fine motor disruptions, etc. Grief has been determined to affect sleep quality, which in turn affects immune function and overall health (Lorton et al., 2006). After reviewing many studies, grief appeared to affect the whole population from the young to the old. Though they may have created different experiences from their loss, studies have found a common prevalent factor of poor sleep quality amongst the varying populations. However despite these findings, Monk, Germain and Reynolds (2008) concluded that sleep dysfunction has been ignored clinically as it is not classified as a symptom of grief.

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