Team to study effects of Covid funeral restrictions

FOR many families, the hardest part of lockdown has been coping with the loss of a loved one due to strict limits on funerals.

Now researchers are to examine the experiences of those who have to arrange, conduct and attend services during the pandemic.

Academics at Aberdeen University will look at how bereaved families, funeral directors and celebrants have been affected by changes such as online streaming.

While that innovation has made attendance easier for some, it has raised issues for those in rural areas where patchy internet connections cannot cope with the video feeds.

The study will also look at the effects of banning time-honoured traditions such as the Hebridean funeral walk, in which male mourners walking in pairs and in silence take turns to carry the coffin to the departed’s final resting place.

The study, led by Professor Vikki Entwistle, the university’s chair in health services research and philosophy, will bring together disciplines including archaeology, philosophy and theology, when analysing the experiences of ‘disruption, distress, adaptation and innovation’.

It will include people from different faiths and none. Professor Entwistle said: ‘Funeral directors and celebrants have experienced the disruption as challenging.’

She added that their work can be considered ‘a form of care’ for all those affected.

Anyone interested in participating should go to abdn.ac.uk/care-in-funerals.