Parental Grief after a Child'S Drug Death Compared to other Death Causes: Investigating a Greatly Neglected Bereavement Population

Abstract

This comparative survey contrasted 571 parents who lost children to various death causes: 48 to drug-related deaths and overdoses, 462 to suicide, 24 to natural death cases, and 37 to mostly accidental death cases. Groups were compared in terms of grief difficulties, mental health problems, posttraumatic stress, and stigmatization. Results did not show any appreciable differences in these respects between the suicide bereaved parents and those losing children to drug-related deaths. However, when the suicide and drug-related death survivors were specifically contrasted against accidental and natural death loss cases, a consistent pattern emerged showing the former group was consistently more troubled by grief and mental health problems than the latter two sub-groups. These differences remained when controls of time since the loss and gender differences were employed as covariates. These findings suggest that the powerful and intense stigma against drug use and mental illness, shared among the public-at-large, imposes challenges in healing of immense proportion for these parents as they find less compassionate responses from their significant others, following their losses.

Feelings of Blameworthiness and Their Associations With the Grieving Process in Suicide Mourning

“…We hypothesized that suicide and drug death bereaved parents would experience greater feelings of blameworthiness compared to other bereaved parents whose children died from natural causes and or from ordinary accidents, owing to the social disapproval associated with the former types of deaths. In our previous work we found great similarities in exposures to stigmatization and grief difficulties among suicide and drug death bereaved parents, compared to other accident and natural death bereaved parents (Feigelman et al, 2011). We also anticipated that when parents had closer and more positive relationships with their children prior to the death their feelings of blameworthiness would be lessened compared to when parents had mixed or conflicted relationships with their children.…”

Compassion or stigma? How adults bereaved by alcohol or drugs experience services

“…, Guy & Holloway , Feigelman et al . , Grace ), of which three are very small, have hitherto researched how families cope after such a death (Valentine et al . Forthcoming).…”

The Opioid Epidemic: What Is a Child Psychiatrist to Do?

“…Feigelman and colleagues compared measures of grief, psychological health, and stigma among 540 parents attending grief peer support groups who had lost children due to natural, accidental, suicide, or OD deaths. 5 Compared to parents who lost their child to natural or accidental death those who lost their child due to suicide or OD death were more likely to have complicated grief, post-traumatic stress, depression, and psychological problems. Parents who lost their child due to suicide or OD death were also more likely to hear comments blaming the child and parent compared to parents who lost their child due to natural or accidental death.…”