Major
Nursing
Minor(s)
Thanatology
Advisor
Susan DeSanto-Madeya
Advisor Department
Nursing, College of
Date
5-2023
Keywords
Grief; College Students; Parental Loss
Abstract
Grief and loss can affect individuals of all ages; however, the most commonly overlooked population is young adults, typically between the ages of 15 to 25. For this project, I specifically focused on grief in college age students who have lost a parent. Having personally dealt with the loss of my father when I was 19 and a sophomore in college, I became acutely aware of the needs of college age students in dealing with my own grief. I discovered this population of young adults are most definitely overlooked when it comes to having support and age-related resources available throughout their grief journey. For this project, I completed a systematic review of the nursing and health-related literature to explore the experience of grief in college age students and the resources that could be beneficial in helping them through their grief journey and ultimately avoiding complicated grief. In addition to the literature review, student interviews were conducted in order to better understand the experience of grief for college age students and explore what resources are available at the University of Rhode Island, as well as what they wish the school had provided them throughout their grieving process.