Bereavement Research Forum Bereavement Research Forum Influences of religion and culture on continuing bonds after bereavement in British Muslims of Pakistani origin Policy documents * Concern regarding the lack of up take of services by BME communities (Hill & Penso, 1995) * Recognition of need to provide culturally sensitive services (Gunaratnam, 2007) * E.g. NICE guidelines regarding spiritual care * Bereavement - the actual loss of a significant other * Grief - the emotional response to bereavement * Mourning - the culturally defined actions which express grief                                             (Stroebe, Stroebe & Hansson, 2003) * Cultural narratives determine responses to death and bonds to the deceased. * Religions form part of this narrative and include ways in which a person and community make sense of important deaths                                                                                  (Klass & Goss, 2002) * Models of grief stem from Euro-American framework and therefore may not represent grief in other cultures * People not living in their own country may have a combination of ways of mourning and find difficulty in accessing support (Rosenblatt, 2003) * People can continue to have a relationship with the person who has died (Silverman and Klass, 1996) * To explore the nature of relationships bereaved Pakistani Muslims living in the UK have to deceased relatives, and the effect this has on the bereaved. * To develop an understanding of how relationships to the deceased are influenced by religious and cultural beliefs * To develop an understanding of the influence of the context in which the bereaved live (i.e. being a Muslim Asian living in the UK). Semi structured interviews using cultural psychology model (O’Dell et al, 2004) * looks at concepts through the lens of that culture * assumes psychological processes may not be universal to all cultures * assumes processes are mediated through specific cultural contexts Analysis of themes in transcripts to gain a model through constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2000) Participants: * Adults of any age * Muslim * Of Pakistani origin * English speaking as 1st or 2nd language * Bereaved in the last 18mth-5years * Of a relative but not a child * Not receiving formal support   Hanan Hussein and Jan Oyebode, University of Birmingham Setting the scene Background to study Aims of study Design of study Design of study