Attitudes toward bereavement support and associated factors in the Japanese population: a cross-sectional study

Recently, public health approaches are increasingly recognized as crucial to bereavement support, and many initiatives based on grief literacy and compassionate community movement are being developed. In this context, this study aimed to examine adults' attitudes toward bereavement support and their related factors considering regional and individual characteristics to provide a foundation for examining community-based bereavement support.

A web-based survey was conducted from October to November 2024 among adults living in Japan, with 3,378 participants included in the analysis. The survey measured attitudes toward bereavement support, psychological connections with community, and individual help-seeking styles. We employed descriptive statistics to examine attitudes toward bereavement support and multiple regression analyses to examine the association between attitudes toward bereavement support and regional and individual characteristics, categorized by residential area scale (large, medium-sized, and small cities).

The results of this survey indicate that while awareness of and experience with bereavement support in Japan are limited, a certain degree of interest and perceived applicability of such support is present. Several factors associated with attitudes toward bereavement support were found to be common across residential areas, particularly the extent of thinking about death. Psychological connections with community and help-seeking styles differed depending on the scale of the residential area.

The findings indicate that attitudes toward bereavement support are influenced by both individual psychological characteristics and community context, with patterns of association differing according to residential area. Region-sensitive approaches to bereavement support and foundational evidence for its development in Japan are needed.