Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:43:25.819Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Morbidity following Sudden and Unexpected Bereavement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Tom Lundin
Tom Lundin*
Affiliation:
University Hospital, 75185 Uppsala, Sweden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

With the help of data on the registered days of sickness per year, a study was made of a group of relatives (n = 32) who had suffered sudden and unexpected bereavement to determine whether this resulted in an increase in morbidity in the two-year period following the loss, compared with the previous two years. A comparison was made with a control group of relatives who had also suffered bereavement but where the deaths were not unexpected. Increased morbidity, especially psychiatric morbidity, was found following sudden and unexpected bereavement but not in the control group. It is concluded that persons exposed to sudden and unexpected loss of a close relative are subject to increased psychiatric morbidity and should be regarded as a high-risk group.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 144 , Issue 1 , January 1984 , pp. 84 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Calvert, P. H., Northeast, J. & Cunningham, E. (1977) Death in a country area and its effect on the health of relatives. Medical Journal of Australia, 2, 635–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornwell, J., Nurcombe, B. & Stevens, L. (1977) Family response to loss of a child by sudden infant death syndrome. Medical Journal of Australia, 1, 18, 656–8.Google Scholar
Friedman, S. (1974) Psychological aspects of sudden unexpected death in infants and children. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 21, 1, (Feb), 103–11.Google Scholar
Frost, N. & Clayton, P. (1977) Bereavement and psychiatric hospitalization. Archives of General Psychiatry, 34, 1172–5.Google Scholar
Glick, I. O., Weiss, R. S. & Parkes, C. M. (1974) The first year of bereavement. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Lehrman, S. (1956) Reactions to untimely death. Psychiatry Quarterly, 30, 564–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levinson, P. (1972) On sudden death. Psychiatry, 35, 160–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parkes, C. M. (1964a) Recent bereavement as a cause of mental illness. British Journal of Psychiatry, 110, 198–204.Google Scholar
Parkes, C. M. (1964b) The effects of bereavement on physical and mental health: a study of the medical records of widows. British Medical Journal, 2, 274–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parkes, C. M. (1972) Bereavement. Studies of Grief in Adult Life. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Parkes, C. M., Benjamin, B. & Fitzgerald, R. G. (1969) Broken heart: a statistical study of increased mortality among widowers. British Medical Journal, 1, 740.Google Scholar
Singh, B. & Raphael, B. (1981) Postdiaster morbidity of the bereaved. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 169, 4, 203–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisman, A. (1973) Coping with untimely death. Psychiatry, 36, 366–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, V., Lee, J. & Polak, P. (1976) Crisis intervention. Effects of crisis intervention on family survivors of sudden death situations. Community Mental Health Journal, 12, 2, 128–36.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.