Who participates in bereavement research? Protocol of a meta-method systematic review of the empirical studies published in Death Studies and Omega between 2015-2019 (pre-covid) and 2020-2024 (during and post-covid)

Sampling strategies and recruitment methods may influence the results researchers can obtain. Yet, this issue has received relatively limited attention and consideration in bereavement research, particularly in survey studies. This is particularly important in informing theory and clinical practice that are socially and culturally situated and are striving to be as responsive as possible to diverse cultural, structural, and geopolitical realities. The present meta-method systematic review aims to explore how sampling and recruitment methods can explain the gender ratio and non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic), representativeness of bereaved people’s participation in bereavement research. All empirical studies published in two major journals (i.e., Death Studies and Omega) between 2015-2019 (pre-COVID) and 2020-2024 (COVID and post-COVID) will be examined. It will critically examine how researchers outlined and addressed their sampling strategies and recruitment methods, and in relation to their findings, how representativity (for quantitative studies) and how trustworthiness and transferability (for qualitative studies) were addressed in each study. The relationship between sampling and recruitment strategies and the gender ratio of bereaved participants will be examined as well as their relationship to key sociodemographic and bereavement-related indicators. We expect that, while grief is universal and individually experienced, bereavement theories, methods and research are often positioned in ways that aim to measure, evaluate, diagnose and ‘treat’ grief. We also expect that overreliance on self-selected samples, particularly those using the Internet or social media, and hospice and/or bereavement program contacts, are at risk of reproducing structural inequities by not working with communities who are experiencing grief/loss but not accessing care. Such recruitment and sampling methods will generate an overrepresentation of women and of WEIRD samples in the published studies.