Terror-bereaved parents experiences of professional help and support: a qualitative analysis

ABSTRACTBackground: After the loss of a child, bereaved parents typically experience profound grief and face an increased risk of both physical and mental health challenges. Research shows that bereaved parents need support, but there is limited knowledge on their experiences with receiving help.Objective: To explore how bereaved parents following the 2011 Utøya terror attack have experienced the help they have received.Method: Bereaved parents (n = 22) were interviewed nine years post loss. The interview guide had questions about their experiences with grief and trauma, the impact of other life events and their experience of professional help. Interviews were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.Results: Participants' experiences were found to represent three different pathways: (1) Receiving help, but not feeling helped, (2) Securing the help they needed and (3) Feeling left alone - mismatch between the help received and the help needed. Across all pathways, participants described helpful meetings with professionals, constructed as the cross-cutting theme: 'Seen but gently challenged'.Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that bereaved parents are not a homogenous group, which emphasises the need for individualised interventions. Although most parents appear to have received some form of professional support, it was not always proactive or continuous. As a result, some parents struggled to access the right help when they needed it. Those who did manage to secure appropriate support were often those with the resources to seek it out. Although our data do not fully clarify which factors influence this disparity, it is evident that across all pathways, parents reported positive interactions with professionals. The issue, therefore, seems less about the competence of helpers and more about ensuring access to this expertise. However, the current study also reveals that some bereaved individuals lacked access to the right type of help, while others were unable to utilise the help.