Losing a loved one to homicide: Prevalence and mental health correlates in a national sample of young adults

Abstract

The present study examined the prevalence, demographic distribution, and mental health correlates of losing a loved one to homicide. A national sample of 1753 young adults completed structured telephone interviews measuring violence exposure, mental health diagnoses, and loss of a family member or close friend to a drunk driving accident (vehicular homicide) or murder (criminal homicide). The prevalence of homicide survivorship was 15.2%. African Americans were more highly represented among criminal homicide survivors. Logistic regression analyses found that homicide survivors were at risk for past year posttraumatic stress disorder (OR = 1.88), major depressive episode (OR = 1.64), and drug abuse/dependence (OR = 1.77). These findings highlight the significant mental health needs of homicide survivors. (CDC, 2004). Each murder leaves behind 7 to 10 close relatives, in addition to friends, neighbors, and co-workers (Redmond, 1989). Therefore, the number of individuals affected is far greater than the number of direct homicide victims. "Homicide survivors," also called "co-victims" are generally defined as the friends, family, and loved ones that survive murder victims (including victims of drunk driving accidents, or vehicular homicide). While direct victims of homicide receive substantial attention in society and research reports, homicide survivors are infrequently acknowledged. However, the unexpected, violent loss of a loved one is a potentially traumatic event that can have significant psychological implications.Homicide survivors suffer from both similar and unique experiences in comparison to direct victims of crime. Similar to other crime victims, homicide survivors may contend with economic stressors, stigmatization, fear of recurrence, anxiety when encountering reminders of the event, negative beliefs about themselves and the world, and feelings of guilt and responsibility. In contrast to other crime victims, homicide survivors often face greater intrusion of the media and criminal justice systems, strained relationships with friends or family members that are suspected perpetrators, and preoccupation with revenge (see Hertz, ProthrowStith, & Chery, 2005). These stressors may contribute to the risk for mental health problems among homicide survivors. An understanding of the impact of homicide is of particular Regarding mental health problems, several descriptive studies suggest that homicide survivors are at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and general psychiatric symptoms (AmickMcMullan et al., 1991;Amick-McMullan, Kilpatrick, Veronen, & Smith, 1989; Freedy, Resnick, Kilpatrick, Danksy, & Tidwell, 1994;Murphy, Johnson, Wu, Fan, & Lohan, 2003;Murphy, Johnson, & Lohan, 2002;Parkes, 1993;Thompson, Norris, & Ruback, 1998 , investigators have yet to explore whether losing a loved one to homicide represents a specific risk factor for substance use problems. Moreover, no known studies have examined whether homicide survivorship is a significant predictor of mental health outcomes in re...

Survivors of Homicide: Mental Health Outcomes, Social Support, and Service Use Among a Community-Based Sample

“…For example, the nature of homicide is sudden, often gruesome, and made worse by the knowledge that a loved one died as the direct result of human malevolence. Although many homicides go unsolved or are committed by strangers, these results are consistent with national estimates provided by the U.S. Department of Justice (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2007-2009 for the same 3-year period as this study in suggesting that, when the killer was identified and knew the victim, the killer was more likely to be a nonrelative than a relative. Whether the relationship between the killer and victim, especially in cases of intrafamily homicides, serves as a risk factor for psychopathology among survivors is a question that deserves further investigation in future studies.…”

“…Three participants (6.4%) reported being present at the time of their loved one's homicide. Consistent with nationally reported data during the same time (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2007-2009, more than half of the participants reported that their loved one knew the killer (n 5 24, 51.1%), and in this subset of cases where the victim knew the killer, the perpetrator was more often a nonrelative than a relative such that perpetrators were often described as friends (n 5 5, 20.8%) or acquaintances (n 5 11, 45.8%) of the victim. In the remaining cases where the victim knew the killer, one perpetrator was the victim's spouse (4.2%), one was the victim's cousin (4.2%), and four (16.7%) were described in the "other" category.…”

“…The deleterious and potentially chronic effects of violence (e.g., PTSD, depression) on individuals whose family members were murdered have been well documented in prior epidemiological studies (e.g., Rheingold et al, 2012;Zinzow et al, 2011;Zinzow et al, 2009). Few studies have examined PTSD, MDD, and CG within the same sample; the relationship between these disorders; factors that are associated with risk/resiliency; and knowledge and use of services.…”

Beyond Community Violence: Loss and Traumatic Grief in African American Elementary School Children

“…In fact, grief was the strongest predictor of most of these outcomes for boys and was the only predictor related (inversely) to academic achievement for girls. This finding of the importance of grief, even when controlling for violence exposure, is consistent with data on adult African Americans which found that grief was a more intransigent emotion than personal victimization (Thompson et al 1998), and with that from a national survey of young adults which found that homicide survivorship was significantly related to PTSD, MDD and drug abuse, even after controlling for personal victimization and witnessing (Zinzow et al 2009). These findings are also consistent with an earlier reported finding from this data set that death or injury of a close other was significantly related to psychological distress, particularly so for boys (Jenkins et al 2009).…”

“…Indeed, a national survey of young adults found that blacks were three times more likely than whites to report that a friend or family member had been a victim of a homicide (Zinzow et al 2009) and that these losses were related to PTSD, depression and substance use, even after controlling for other sources of stress. However, a study of bereaved college students found that while blacks were significantly more likely than whites to report that their loss resulted from homicide (11.6 % vs. 2.4 %), overall, 75 % of their significant losses were not apparently related to suicide/ homicide or an accident (Laurie and Niemeyer 2008).…”