Autobiographical Memory Of Shidu Parents And The Relationship Between Autobiographical Memory And Prolonged Grief

In recent years, the Shidu Parents get increasing number of attention in society. There are a large number of Shidu parents in China. It is estimated that there will be 76 thousand of new Shidu families. Bereavement is one of the most painful events in our live, and the loss of the only child may even lead to the cognitive and emotional obstacles for these parents. Research has found that the autobiographical memory about grief is closely related to the prolonged grief. Therefore, this study use autobiographical memory test and prolonged grief questionnaire to investigate the relationship between autobiographical memory and prolonged grief of Shidu parents.32 Shidu parents with 26 female and 6 male from Beijing participated the study. the average length of bereavement is0.7 to 27 years(Mean=7.6, SD=7.2), with an average age of 59 years. The results showed that:(1) Then contents of autobiographical memory can be divided into 8 categories: bereavement events, life-threatening event, future expecting events, interpersonal events, individual events, achievements & control, entertainment & exploration and other unclassified event.(2) The specific memory, specific memory in positive words were positively correlated with age. The number of memory, the specificity, the memory content shows no significant different in other demographic variables as gender, education level, religious belief, marriage status(p>0.05).(3) the number of memory and the content memory were significantly different on different cues. The negative cues are more likely to arouse the "bereavement events" and "expected future" memory.(4) The autobiographical memory specificity decease among Shidu parents, there are significant differences in different content on specificity.(5) Pro-longed grief shows no significant different in demographic variables as education level, religious belief, marriage status(p>0.05) but correlation with loss variables.(6)The number of memory, bereavement events and interpersonal events memory are associated with the prolonged grief severity. There is no relationship between specific autobiographical memory and prolonged grief, the bereavement events and memory aroused by negative cue can effectively predict the degree of prolonged grief.The Autobiographical memory content about grief showed the direct and indirect grief characteristics. In the process of extraction Autobiographical memory, cue words has significant priming effect. The bereavement events and memory aroused by negative cue word memory can be the predictors of prolonged grief.