Parent bereavement stress and preventive intervention following the violent deaths of adolescent or young adult children.

It is currently believed that effective intervention programs can reduce the negative consequences of stressful life events. The purpose of this paper is to describe a three-step process used to develop a theory-based preventive intervention for parents whose 12- to 28-year-old children had died 2 to 7 months previously by accident, homicide, or suicide. Assumptive world, family life cycle, victimization, and social support theories form the basis for "matching" parent bereavement stress with selected intervention strategies.