Disenfranchised grief following a non-fatal road traffic incident: a case study exploring a mother's experience.

This case study explores a scenario that was observed by a final year nursing student on placement in a paediatric emergency department, in a busy London teaching hospital. A mother appeared distressed following the news that her son who had survived a road traffic incident with minimal impact to his cognitive and physical abilities, was stable enough to be transferred to the children's medical ward. Whilst this appeared to be positive for supporting figures in her life and the emergency practitioners involved, observation and discussion with the mother revealed that her distress was related to her experience of losses that were undetected by those around her.