Grief among gay men associated with multiple losses from AIDS

Few quantitative studies have examined the phenomena of multiple loss and cumulative grief occurring in gay men as a result of the AIDS epidemic. In this study, Sanders's Integrative Theory of Bereavement (1989) was used to examine the relationship between multiple loss and the intensity of grief experienced by gay men. The relationship of selected situational factors and internal characteristics of the bereaved to the numbers of losses and intensity of grief was also explored. Ninety-three gay men living in San Francisco, whose own HIV status was negative or unknown, and who had lost at least three friends, lovers, or relatives to AIDS, completed the Grief Experience Inventory and a demographic questionnaire. There was no significant relationship between the number of individual losses reported and the intensity of grief experienced. There were significant relationships among social and demographic variables. Factors influencing the bereavement response found in this study are consistent with several of the external and internal mediators presented in Sanders's theory. The findings suggest that an adaptive process of habituation may be occurring and that these men may be remaining in Sanders's conservation-withdrawal phase of bereavement.