The nurse is educating a group of student nurses about perceived loss. The nurse knows that the students understand when one of them verbalizes which example?
a husband is grieving the loss of his wife of 40 years
a first-time mother is disappointed that she had a boy instead of a girl
Number 4 is correct.
Rationale: A perceived loss is one that is not obvious to those around the person experiencing the loss. Disappointment over the birth of a child of the “wrong” sex would not be obvious to those around her unless she verbalized it. Losing a job, failing a class, and losing a spouse are events that would obviously be perceived as a loss.
