[Patterns of coping strategies after bereavement among spouses of cancer patients]

The purposes of this study were (1) to identify healthy and unhealthy patterns of coping strategies after bereavement among spouses of cancer patients and 2) to explore the characteristics of patients and spouses associated with these patterns of coping strategies. The participants were 821 bereaved individuals whose spouses had died at the National Cancer Center Hospital East. Three patterns of coping strategies after bereavement were found: "Distraction Focused" (healthy), "Continuing Bonds Focused" (unhealthy), and "General Coping" (almost healthy). Two strategies for improving the unhealthy coping patterns of "Continuing Bonds Focused" were (1) enhancing "Distraction" and reducing "Continuing Bonds" for achieving "Distraction Focused" (healthy) and (2) enhancing both "Distraction" and "Social Sharing/Reconstruction" for achieving "General Coping" (almost healthy). The patients' characteristics associated with the bereaved spouses' coping strategy of "Continuing Bonds Focused" were "under 65 years", "history of psychiatric consultation", "duration of last hospital admission was less than one week", and "time since cancer diagnosis to death was less than one year". These four characteristics of the deceased patients were considered to be risk factors for spouses who would utilize unhealthy coping patterns after bereavement.