{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]],"date-time":"2026-05-29T23:19:35Z","timestamp":1780096775236,"version":"3.54.0"},"reference-count":25,"publisher":"Springer Science and Business Media LLC","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,29]],"date-time":"2021-10-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1635465600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,29]],"date-time":"2021-10-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1635465600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["link.springer.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["BMC Psychol"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,12]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:sec>\n                <jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title>\n                <jats:p>The psychological and social issues experienced by family members of missing persons are different from normal grief following the death of a loved one. The term \u201cAmbiguous loss\u201d describes this psychological phenomenon. Ambiguous loss acts as a barrier to adjusting to grief, leading to symptoms of depression and intra and interpersonal relational conflicts. An in-depth phenomenological understanding of this subjective experience is important.\n<\/jats:p>\n              <\/jats:sec><jats:sec>\n                <jats:title>Method<\/jats:title>\n                <jats:p>A qualitative study was conducted among close family members of persons who had gone missing during the civil conflict and the 2004 tsunami in southern Sri Lanka following formal ethical approval from an university ethics review committee. Purposive and snowballing sampling methods were used to recruit the participants. Theoretical sample saturation was achieved with 24 family members of missing persons. Responders were mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and siblings of missing individuals. In-depth interviews were recorded with the help of a semi-structured guide, after informed consent. The recordings were transcribed and coded by three independent investigators. The investigators through consensus arrived at the phenomenological themes and grounded them through reflexivity. The triangulation process involved cross-checking observational notes made by the interviewers and consulting the interviewees.<\/jats:p>\n              <\/jats:sec><jats:sec>\n                <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                <jats:p>We interviewed 24 first degree relatives of missing individuals. Twenty-one of the interviewees were unsure about the fate of the missing individual, while three of them believed the missing individual to be dead. Of the 24 missing individuals, 20 were males and 18 had gone missing in civil conflicts and 6 in the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Six predominant phenomenological themes were identified. Those were lack of closure, hope, guilt, helplessness, perpetual suffering, and an emotional vacuum. These phenomenological experiences are highlighted by the interviewees through a range of utterances that hold profound cultural, social and emotional significance of unresolved and vacillating grief.<\/jats:p>\n              <\/jats:sec><jats:sec>\n                <jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n                <jats:p>The highlighted phenomenology of grief in surviving family members of those who go missing following traumatic events demands a response from health and social services in every country that experiences disaster. The surviving loved one is \u2018locked in grief\u2019 indefinitely and future research on evidence-based interventions to overcome this predicament is warranted.<\/jats:p>\n              <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1186\/s40359-021-00675-7","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,29]],"date-time":"2021-10-29T03:31:26Z","timestamp":1635478286000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Locked in grief: a qualitative study of grief among family members of missing persons in southern Sri Lanka"],"prefix":"10.1186","volume":"9","author":[{"given":"Amila","family":"Isuru","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Padmakumara","family":"Bandumithra","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"S. 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The first Asian conference on psychosocial work in the search for enforced disappeared persons. In: Exhumation processes and the struggle for justice and T; 2010. pp. 38\u201340."},{"key":"675_CR7","unstructured":"International Committee of the Red Cross. Sri Lanka: Report released on needs of families of missing persons | International Committee of the Red Cross. 2016 [cited 2020 Jun 21]. https:\/\/www.icrc.org\/en\/document\/sri-lanka-families-missing-persons."},{"issue":"862","key":"675_CR8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"355","DOI":"10.1017\/S1816383106000567","volume":"88","author":"M Crettol","year":"2006","unstructured":"Crettol M, La Rosa A-M. The missing and transitional justice: the right to know and the fight against impunity. 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The authors confirm that all research protocols were approved by ethic review committee, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka and informed written consent was obtained from all the interviewees. The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008.","order":2,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Ethics approval and consent to participate"}},{"value":"All three authors consented\u00a0for this research to be published.","order":3,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Consent for publication"}},{"value":"The authors declare no competing interests.","order":4,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Competing interests"}}],"article-number":"167"}}