The Church of Sweden launches First Aid for Grief

The Sifo survey about grief – Summary

The survey was conducted by Kantar Sifo during the period 20 September to 5 October 2017. 4,200 people (200 from each county) between the ages of 18 and 79 years took part in web-based interviews. The results in brief:

– Grief is important. 95 per cent think that it is important to be there and support people who are grieving the loss of someone. More women (97%) than men (93%) responded that they agreed with this statement to some degree.

– There is uncertainty associated with how to respond to a person who is grieving. Close to 7 out of 10 (68%) have experienced at some time that they did not know what to do or say to a person who was suffering from grief. People younger than 50 years stated this more often than older age groups.

– 68 per cent were of the opinion that in Sweden we are generally not good at dealing with grief.Women (73%) stated this more frequently than men (64%). People in the 50–64 age group agreed with this statement more frequently than other age groups (72%).

– Women are more comfortable about responding to the bereaved. Women (63%) stated more frequently than men (49%) that they are comfortable about responding to the bereaved. 34 per cent of men and 19 per cent of women stated that they find attempting to respond to a grieving person so uncomfortable that it is something they try to avoid.

– What is perceived to be the most difficult in responding to the bereaved is what to say (51%), fear of being intrusive (43%), and knowing what is okay to do (33 %). Only 8 per cent experienced that nothing is difficult when they encounter the bereaved.

– Many people would like to be able to respond in a better way to the bereaved, particularly young people. A total of 7 of 10 (71%) would like to be able to respond in a better way to people who are grieving. More young people, 18–29 years (79%), would like to be better at this compared with older age groups.

– More than one quarter (28%) have at some time in their lives had regretted how they responded to someone who was grieving. Over half (55%) have not regretted how they responded. In the age group 18–29 years, 32 per cent stated that they regretted how they had responded to someone who was grieving.

– Women are more dissatisfied than men with how other people responded to them when they were grieving. One in three (33%) of women have been disappointed with the way that others responded to them when they were grieving – more than twice as many as men (15%). Respondents to the survey stated more often that they would have liked their friends to have done more for them (16%) than other groups. Employers and the workplace were also mentioned frequently in the open responses to the survey when we asked those who were disappointed about who might have done more for them.