Abstract:Background: Widowed older adults are often overlooked in healthcare, despite experiencing grief shaped by cultural, spiritual, social, and gendered factors. While global health efforts prioritize maternal and child health, this focus reveals a care gap for grieving older adults, whose needs remain largely invisible. Existing research on grief is Western-centric, offering limited insight into how cultural and gender expectations influence bereavement in non-Western contexts like the Philippines. In local healthcare, grief responses often focus on visible symptoms, neglecting the deeper emotional and psychosocial impact of widowhood. This study explores how Filipino norms, gender roles, and support systems shape the grieving process and coping mechanisms of widowed individuals. It seeks to synthesize their lived experiences informing inclusive, culturally sensitive grief care practices in Philippine nursing and mental health. Methods: This qualitative phenomenological study with a transformative lens explored the lived experiences of nine widowed individuals for at least five years in Quezon City, Philippines. Participants were selected through purposive sampling and interviewed for 60-90 minutes with a professional present. Results: The thematic analysis revealed five themes: (1) The Unseen Support: Unveiling the Role of Support Systems, (2) Carrying the Unseen: Coping and Living Beyond the Loss, (3) Embodied Grief: The Physical and Emotional Burden of Loss, (4) Attended but Unheard: The Overlooked Emotional Needs of Widows and Widowers in Healthcare, and (5) Same Loss, Different Language: A Gendered Reflection on Grief. These findings show that grief is complex, embodied, and socially constructed. Conclusion: The study explored how culture, gender, and support systems shape grief among widowed Filipinos, revealing biopsychosocial impacts, gendered-coping, and care gaps. Advocating culturally grounded, gender-responsive, community-based interventions in nursing, it aligns with SDGs 3 and 11, emphasizing that recognizing grief as a mental health issue fosters inclusive, resilient healthcare systems.
Keywords: Mental Health, coping mechanism, cultural expectations, gender, grief, lived experiences, mental health, phenomenology, thematic analysis, widowers, widowhood, widows
