A grief counseling programme for families bereaved by suicide does not reduce grief or depression, but may help to prevent perceptions of blame among close relatives and spouses, finds a study published on bmj.com.
Up to 15 per cent of bereaved people develop complicated grief, characterized by symptoms such as purposelessness, subjective sense of detachment, yearning, disbelief, and bitterness related to the death. It is also associated with long term psychiatric illness and suicidal ideation.
The study revealed that counseling had no beneficial effect on complicated grief, suicidal ideation or depression. However, after adjusting for several factors, the researchers did see a trend towards reduced perceptions of being to blame and fewer maladaptive grief reactions in the counseling group compared to the usual care group.
The authors suggest that having a chance in counseling to inform relatives of the psychiatric context in which suicide usually occurs, and reflect on and acknowledge their loved one’s difficulties before the suicide, may have helped relatives to realize that they did nothing wrong
Read the full study here
Kevin Gafa` - Psychiatric Nurse
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