Is there a role for the funeral service provider in bereavement support within the context of compassionate communities?

Abstract This is the first study to explore bereaved individuals’ experiences of funeral service providers using these services’ databases. A total of 839 Australians participated in a postal survey, 6–24 months into their bereavement. Funeral providers were reported to be the third most prevalent form of bereavement support after friends and family. Analysis found six themes related to perceived helpful or unhelpful support: instrumental support, professionalism, informational support, financial tension, communication, and emotional support. Funeral providers could improve their support by adopting a proactive approach to bereavement needs and offering personalized and ongoing support. We develop these suggestions by exploring their potential contributions to building community capacity around death, dying and bereavement.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Death Studies

• Publication date

  2018-09-28

• Fields of study

  Sociology, Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1080/07481187.2018.1506835PMID 30265833
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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