The Extent of the Social Coping of Bereaved Parents Who Lost an Offspring Due to Sudden Death in the West Bank and Jerusalem in Relation to the Extent of Their Religiosity and the Death Circumstances

Abstract

The present study aims at acknowledging the extent of social coping
among bereaved parents who have lost an offspring due to sudden death
in the West Bank and Jerusalem and its relation with the level of parents’
religiosity and the circumstances of the offspring’s death. The accumulative
approach ,with its both parts the descriptive and the deductive, has been used
for this study and the sample consist of 298 mothers and fathers who lost
their offspring due to sudden death. They have all agreed to take part in this
study. The sample members have come from different areas in Jerusalem;
Bethlehem; Hebron; Ramallah; Nablus; and Jericho, in addition to villages
and camps in the West Bank and Jerusalem. A questionnaire has been
especially designed for the purpose of this study.
The results indicate that there are significant differences among the
parents’ cooping in terms of religiosity. For as, the parents who were more
religious, were also more accepting compared to the parents who were less
religious. Moreover, the results also indicate that the parents who lost an
offspring due to sudden death such as martyrdom, drowning, and killing were
less accepting and coping compared to the parents who have lost an offspring
to illness and other causes.