Losing a parent to suicide: Posttraumatic stress, sense of coherence and family functioning in children, adolescents and remaining parents before attending a grief support program

Abstract

Parental suicide in childhood increases the risk of mental ill-health, substance use and premature mortality, particularly through suicide. Postvention supports tailored to the well-being and functioning of suicide-bereaved children and their remaining parents are thus of critical importance to counteract negative development. This explorative cross-sectional study seeks clinically relevant knowledge by investigating posttraumatic stress (PTS), sense of coherence (SOC) and family functioning among children (n = 22), adolescents (n = 18) and parents (n = 40) before their attendance at a family-based grief support program. The results demonstrate critical health outcomes for children and parents, and in particular for adolescents. Clinically relevant symptoms of PTS were found in 36% of children, 65% of adolescents, and 37% of parents. All groups showed lower SOC than the norm. Adolescents reported dysfunctional family functioning for the dimensions Communication and Affective Responsiveness. Psychoeducational and trauma-informed support is recommended where family communication and meaning construction of suicide is given special attention.