Childhood Parent-loss in a Psychiatrically Normal Population

The Long‐Term Effects of Parental Divorce in Childhood on Adult Adjustment

“…Chen & Cobb, 1960;Koller & Williams, 1974), @) the use of specialized or "biased" samples; and (c) failure to adequately take into account the prevalence of childhood parental loss or separation within the general population (cf. Munro, 1965).…”

“…Although a number of studies investigating linkages between parental separation and later adjustment have been conducted and reviewed over the past few decades (e.g., Chen & Cobb, 1960;Gregory, 1966;Koller & Williams, 1974;Munro, 1965Munro, , 1969aMunro, , 1969bMunro & Griffiths, 1969), most of these studies suffer from one or more methodological flaws which make their results difficult to interpret. First, many early studies failed to distinguish between parental deprivation due to voluntary marital disruption and permanent loss due to parental death (Chen & Cobb, 1960;Koller & Willams, 1974).…”

“…Thus, they failed to adequately take into account the extent to which childhood parental loss or separation occurs within the general, non-clinical population (cf. Munro, 1965).…”

Chronic Disability in Men of Middle Age: A Study of 165 Men in a General Practice and a Refinery

“…Our inquiry into parental death during the childhood of our respondents was to some extent related to severity of disability, but the overall percentage for all the men was close to that found by Munro (1965) in psychiatrically normal hospital outpatients of the same age. Serious illness in the family whilst the subject was a child showed a similar trend, but our evidence does not allow any definite conclusion.…”

Parent death in relation to age and parental age at birth in psychiatric patients and general population controls.

“…There is close agreement apart from the incidence of father death occurring in the 0-4 age span. Dennehy (1966), Brown (1961), and Munro (1965) show relatively higher incidences of loss during this period, and it is possible that this may be due to a confusion between illegitimacy and early father death. By including the category of 'never known' in the questionnaire, it is more likely that only fathers who died were recorded.…”