Qualitative Exploration of Pet Bereavement Experience among Indonesian Pet-Bereaved Individuals

Bereavement is often associated with the loss of a human being. However, bereavement could also occur when an individual loses a pet. According to various studies, the response to grief and the effects of pet bereavement and human bereavement have no significant differences. Even so, social norms often consider pet bereavement a trivial and less significant grief. There is relatively little literature researching pet bereavement, especially in Indonesia. For this reason, an exploratory study was conducted through qualitative research using an open-ended questionnaire to explore the experience of pet bereavement. There were 101 participants involved in filling out the questionnaire, which was dominated by women (82%), people aged 18-24 years old (57%), and the grieving cat species (71%). From the inductive thematic analysis, four themes were found that represent the components of the pet bereavement experience, namely, (1) bereavement reactions, (2) bereavement coping, (3) support system, and (4) self-growth. With these findings, the support system around bereavement survivors can better understand the perspective of the survivors and provide the support needed by the bereaved survivors. Keywords pet bereavement, explorative study, inductive thematic analysis, qualitative, support system, Indonesia