Encountering the Body at the Site of the Suicide: A Population-Based Survey in Sweden.
Encountering the body of a child who died by suicide at the site of death is believed to be especially harmful for bereaved parents. We investigated the association between encountering the body at the site of the suicide and psychological distress in 666 suicide-bereaved parents. Parents who had encountered their child's body at the site of the suicide (n = 147) did not have a higher risk of nightmares (relative risk [RR] 0.95, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.67-1.35), intrusive memories (RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.84-1.13), avoidance of thoughts (RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.74-1.27), avoidance of places or things (RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.66-1.25), anxiety (RR 0.93, 95% CI 0.64-1.33), or depression (RR 0.94, 95% CI 0.63-1.42) compared with parents who had not encountered the body (n = 512). Our results suggest that losing a child by suicide is sufficiently disastrous by itself to elicit posttraumatic responses or psychiatric morbidity whether or not the parent has encountered the deceased child at the site of death.
Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Stockholm Centre for Psychiatric Research, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.|Division of Clinical Cancer Epidemiology, Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.|The Department of Health Care Sciences, Ersta Sköndal University College, Stockholm, Sweden.
Pernilla
P
Omerov
Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Stockholm Centre for Psychiatric Research, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.|Division of Clinical Cancer Epidemiology, Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Rossana
R
Pettersen
National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
David
D
Titelman
Division of Clinical Cancer Epidemiology, Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Tommy
T
Nyberg
Division of Clinical Cancer Epidemiology, Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Gunnar
G
Steineck
Center for Crisis Psychology, Bergen, Norway.|Institute of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
Atle
A
Dyregrov
Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Stockholm Centre for Psychiatric Research, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.|Division of Clinical Cancer Epidemiology, Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Ullakarin
U
Nyberg
D000328:Adult; D001601:Bereavement; D002648:Child; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D004325:Dreams; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D000067073:Psychological Trauma / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D012042:Registries; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden