This is the first systematic review of the evidence on the prevalence of self-blame, guilt, and shame in bereaved parents. A search of PsychINFO, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PubMed, and Science Direct resulted in 18 studies for the period 1975 to 2013 which the authors have appraised. Self-blame, guilt, and shame are common in bereaved parents, albeit to varying degrees, with differential relationships to sex, and diminishing over time. There is some evidence that guilt and shame predict more intense grief reactions and that self-blame predicts posttraumatic symptomology, anxiety, and depression in bereaved parents. Heterogeneity of the studies and numerous methodological concerns limit the synthesis and strength of the evidence and the generalizability of the findings. Self-blame, guilt, and shame are commonly experienced by bereaved parents. Awareness of these affective states may assist clinicians in the identification of bereaved parents who are at a higher risk of developing adverse psychological outcomes. Overall, self-blame, guilt, and shame have received very little attention in the bereavement research, leaving many unanswered questions. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are discussed. Self-blame, guilt, and shame are common in bereavement and may hinder the healthy progression of mourning (Buckle & Fleming, 2011;Humphrey, 2009;Rando, 1986 , 1989). However, self-blame, guilt, and shame have received relatively little attention in parental bereavement research. Reviews of guilt and shame in bereavement are either not current or comprehensive, narrative in style and therefore more susceptible to researcher bias or focused on various types of bereavement rather than parental bereavement specifically (Buckle & Fleming, 2011;Humphrey, 2009;Rando, 1986). Miles and Demi (1986) have proposed the only current theory of guilt in bereaved parents. While clinicians acknowledge that self-blame, guilt, and shame often hinder the progression of normal grieving, there are currently no robust, empirically tested theories of self-blame, guilt, and shame in bereaved parents to guide either diagnoses or interventions. This is the first systematic review of the literature on self-blame, guilt, and shame in bereaved parents characterized by a specific research question, inclusion and exclusion criteria, an explicit search strategy, systematic data extraction procedure, coding and analysis of the studies, methodological appraisal, and a synthesis of the available evidence text. These characteristics reduce the likelihood of reviewer bias or selective citation and provide readers with the information necessary to appraise both the included studies and the systematic review itself (Mulrow, 1994;Pai et al., 2004).Defining Self-Blame, Guilt, and Shame Both guilt and shame are self-conscious emotions involving self-blame (Tangney & Salovey, 1999) and, because they are intimately related, they are more difficult to observe as separate phenomena (Blum, 2008;Kubany & Watson, 2003;Silfver, 2007). ...