Bereaved children.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the unique aspects of childhood grief. To provide a framework for family physicians to use in assisting children to grieve. QUALITY OF EVIDENCE: A MEDLINE search from 1966 to 1999 using the key words children, childhood, grief, mourning, and bereavement revealed mainly expert opinion articles, some non-randomized observational studies, and retrospective case-control studies. MAIN MESSAGE: Although children are influenced by similar factors and need to work through the same tasks of grief as adults, their unique psychological defences and evolving cognitive and emotional development make their grieving different from adults'. Understanding these unique childhood features will allow family physicians to more effectively help children through the tasks of acknowledging a death, working through the pain of that death, and accommodating it.
CONCLUSIONS: With a framework for grief counseling that incorporates unique features of children's mourning, family physicians will be in a better position to assist their young bereaved patients.