BEREAVEMENT AND ATTRIBUTIONS IN FIRE SURVIVORS

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Residential fires are devastating disasters producing loss of life, injury, and emotional, social and financial costs to the survivors. Over 6000 people die yearly residential fires, primarily the elderly, the urban poor and the young children of stressed, single parent, low income families. There is little information on the reactions of survivors of residential fires, perhaps because they are isolated disasters with a relatively low profile. Literature from three different lines of research guide this investigation; the study of disasters, the psychological and physical responses of bereaved persona and the research on causal attributions, particularly that related to self-blame and perceptions of control following negative life events. The aims of the proposed research are 1) to described the process of grieving over time in survivors in residential fires; 2) to compare the process of grieving in survivors of residential fires with varying degrees of losses including fatality and displacement; 3) to examine the relationship between the impact of the event (residential fire) and grief responses; and the relationship between family and personal relationships (prior and subsequent to the fire) and grief responses; 4) to examine whether causal searching or particular attributions and/or feeling of self-blame, control and preventability are associated with grief responses; and 5) to develop a multiple variable predictive model of grieving responses in survivors of fires. The proposed study will use a longitudinal, repeated measure, 3 wave panel design to follow 396 adult fire survivors for 13 months post-fire. Data will be gathered through interview, self report, and psychological questionnaires. Four main kind of analyses are envisioned; mean difference, individual difference, outcome and qualitative. Ordinary least squares multiple regression and path analysis procedures will be used for casual modeling.