Child mortality rates in the world and in Turkey have improved rapidly in recent years but are still high. For every child who dies, approximately ten people are deeply affected. This requires that; doctors experiencing frequently the death of a child need to know that the childrens’ ability in their perception of death concept according to developmental levels and maturational stages is different from adults and have to exhibit the appropriate approach for the child and family who have to copy with the loss of a close one. The grief is not an emotion that a person can get over it but a process that will reshape and accommodate.The grief reactions and understanding of death concept are different in every child. There are significant differences in the appearance, duration and intensity in grief reactions of children. How the child lives the death depends on how he perceives it. In the first two years infants cannot comprehend the persistency of death in all aspects but equate death with seperation. In preschool years death is perceived as a temporary condition. In school ages death is explained as a concrete concept and abstract thinking begins in adolescents. Grief reactions are observed in physical and behavioral areas rather than verbal expressions. For physicians, the patient's death is like a defeated, reflecting the inadequacy of medicine and may impair the sense of competence that has developed up to that time. The physicians must always accompany with the child and the family to facilitate the acceptance of the reality of death, strenghten their social and emotional ties and support them for adaptation to daily life.
Key Words: Child; Death; Loss, Grief.
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