Page 582 - Encyclopedia of Nursing Research

WIDOWS AnD WIDOWeRS n 549

setting, nurses should engage widowed cli- those two objectives. nurse researchers must
ents in dialogue about their intentions vis- continue to approach recruitment creatively
à-vis health-related experiences and make while restricting enrollment to inclusion cri- W–Z
every effort to align plans of care with those teria that emanate directly from the research
unique intentions. problem.
Little methodological diversity was evi- nurse researchers have focused on older
dent in this set of research reports about widowed persons, primarily women. The
widowed persons. nurse researchers should increasing interest in younger and midlife
explore associations among variables asso- widows, widowed persons of both genders,
ciated with bereavement and widowhood and diverse u.S. and international subgroups
and test interventions to enable adjustment is encouraging. Researchers should continue
to bereavement and to promote health dur- to illuminate needs of vulnerable subgroups,
ing widowhood. Although qualitative work including parents of young children and
is still warranted on many topics, we offer persons at-risk for age-related conditions.
several recommendations as to approach. Although widows outnumber widowers, the
First, researchers should propose aims that dearth of research with widowers remains
are consistent with the discovery thrust of problematic; more studies yielding gender
qualitative work. The aim to compare facets comparisons are needed.
of a dualism, such as supportive and non- With regard to research topics, scholars
supportive experiences (Scannell-Desch, must reveal variations in experiences among
2005a, 2005b), is more consistent with verifi- widowed persons due to demographic char-
cation than discovery. Second, rigor could be acteristics. Given the recent understanding
enhanced by adopting and reporting detailed of family as broader than kin, some per-
strategies for collecting, managing, and ana- sons might experience “widowhood” with-
lyzing data. Few details were provided about out being legally or socially identified as
methods such as content analysis (Rushton, widowed; this topic warrants further study.
2007) and thematic analysis (Bent & Magilvy, Further research is needed on transitions in
2006). Finally, in describing or interpreting care and home-care satisfaction, particularly
social support, a critical factor in bereave- as technological innovations permit aging in
ment and in widowhood, nurse researchers place. A meta-synthesis of qualitative find-
should consider moving beyond the dichot- ings about bereavement of older widows is
omy of positive–negative support to the dia- warranted. Finally, nurse researchers should
lectical view proposed by other disciplines. actively engage in interdisciplinary dialogue
We also identified implications for about theoretical and empirical relation-
design, inclusion criteria, and sampling that ships between the concepts of bereavement
are pertinent to both qualitative and quanti- and widowhood. each person could pro-
tative studies. Because widowhood is rarely a vide different data about the same loss over
short-term experience, longitudinal designs time; persons who have been widowed for
would yield more useful information than the same period of time provide unique
the usual cross-sectional designs. Duration data about being bereaved. To individual-
of widowhood is a particularly critical inclu- ize interventions, nurses must understand
sion criterion, but Scannell-Desch (2005a, the bereavement experience, how it changes
2005b) was one of the few scholars who over time, and how it interfaces with the
carefully defined such a criterion. Bent and experience of being a widowed person to
Magilvy (2006) called for attention to diver- influence health.
sity in sampling and greater restrictions on
inclusion criteria in studies with widowed Eileen J. Porter
persons, but there is an inherent conflict in Kathy A. Johnson