TABLE 2.

Sense-making Themes Emerging from the Narratives of Parents Who Lost a Child to Violent and Nonviolent Death

Sense-making theme	Coding definition	Total sample (N=155) % (n)	Violent death (n=96) % (n)	Nonviolent death (n=59) % (n)	p a
No sense	Provided explicit response of “no” to  sense-making question or  elaboration indicating no sense  could be made of the loss.	44.9 (70)	53.1 (51)	32.2 (19)	.011 b
Death was God’s will	Discussed God’s will, plan, or that  God knows what is best.	17.9 (28)	16.7 (16)	20.3 (12)	.564b
Theme of an afterlife	Discussed existence of afterlife,  continuum between life and death,  or the belief that deceased child is  safe in afterlife or parent will be  reunited with child.	16.0 (25)	15.6 (15)	16.9 (10)	.828b
Beliefs about human existence,  the imperfection of the  world, and the brevity of life	Discussed beliefs about the  inevitability of death, suffering, and  negative life events. Discussed the  fragility or brevity of life.	10.9 (17)	11.5 (11)	10.2 (6)	.803b
Death attributed to fate/spiritual  journey	Discussed fate, destiny, or spiritual  journey without mention of God.	9.0 (14)	8.3 (8)	10.2 (6)	.699b
Child is no longer suffering	Discussed how child was no longer  physically or mentally suffering as  a result of their death.	7.7 (12)	6.3 (6)	10.2 (6)	.375c
Child’s behavior	Discussed child’s actions (positive,  negative, or neutral) that were  believed to be related to death.	3.2 (5)	5.2 (5)	0.0 (0)	.157c
Biological/medical explanations	Offered concrete biological or  medical explanations for death.	7.1 (11)	4.2 (4)	11.9 (7)	.105c
Purpose of child’s life/death	Discussed the purpose of the child’s  presence in the world or lessons  learned through the child’s death in  the context of why the death  occurred.	3.8 (6)	3.1 (3)	5.1 (3)	.675c
Information-seeking about cause  of death	Discussed obtaining information  about the death in context of  understanding why the death  occurred.	3.2 (5)	3.1 (3)	3.4 (2)	1.000c
Parent’s role in death	Discussed own actions (positive,  negative, or neutral) that were  believed to be related to death.	3.2 (5)	2.1 (2)	5.1 (3)	.369c
Random	Discussed death as a random event.	1.3 (2)	2.1 (2)	0.0 (0)	.525c
Laws of physics	Discussed the laws of physics in the  context of understanding why the  death occurred (e.g., give an  example).	0.6 (1)	1.0 (1)	0.0 (0)	1.000c
Other sense-making themes	Discussed another sense-making  theme/explanation not listed  above to come to terms with their  child’s death.	13.5 (21)	11.5 (11)	16.9 (10)	.332b

Note. Numbers in this table reflect the percentage and amount of parents that discussed a given theme. Parents may have discussed multiple themes, and therefore this table details how common discussion of a theme was in the narrative responses.

^aBolded value indicates a statistically significant association between violent death and sense-making theme at the p<.05 level.

^bChi-square test.

^cFisher’s exact test (used instead of the chi-square test when the expected frequency in at least one cell was less than five).