Enacted Stigma Influences Bereavement Coping Among Children Orphaned by Parental AIDS: A Longitudinal Study with Network Analysis

Abstract

Purpose: The study aims to understand how enacted stigma influences bereavement coping at the style (scale) level and the specific pathways at the strategy (item) level. Methods: The longitudinal data of 755 children orphaned by parental Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in rural China were used. Grief processing and deliberate grief avoidance were measured at wave 1 (baseline) and wave 2 (one-year follow-up) to reflect bereavement coping in the contexts of being with family members, being with friends, being with community members, and being alone. Enacted stigma that measured at wave 1 was used to assess the experienced stigma of these AIDS-orphaned children. Network analyses were run following regressions. Results: Controlling for demographics and baseline-level bereavement coping, multivariate regressions revealed that enacted stigma at wave 1 significantly predicted grief processing and deliberate grief avoidance at wave 2. Network analyses showed that, for grief processing, stigma increased searching for meaning alone and with friends and expressing feelings to community members, which then provoked the same strategy across contexts. Meanwhile, stigma triggered the deliberate grief avoidance network by initially suppressing the expression of feelings to community members. Conclusion: Enacted stigma contributes to bereavement coping. Stigma stirs up complex feelings but forces AIDS-orphaned children to suppress expressions, and it increases needs to process grief through meaning making but cuts supporting forces by promoting avoidance. Interventions are imperative to reduce stigma, improve emotion regulation, and facilitate meaning making for people bereaved by stigmatized deaths.