Bereaved Parents, Hope, and Realism

Abstract

For parents of children with serious illness, hope is a uniquely powerful mechanism that enables coping and promotes resilience.^1,2 Parents describe hope as a life-sustaining factor,^2,3 one that impacts decision-making processes across their child’s illness journey.^1,4 Recent data reveal parental hopes to be fluid, evolving across the illness trajectory^5,6 and persisting in the face of critical illness and at the end of life.^1,6,7