Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:41:04.045Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bereavement after Homicide

A Comparison of Treatment Seekers and Refusers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

E. K. Rynearson
E. K. Rynearson*
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Department of Psychiatry, Seattle, WA, and Section of Psychiatry, Virginia Mason Medical Center, 1100 9th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98111, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

This brief report presents initial findings from a prospective descriptive study of adults after the homicide of a family member. Within the first year of bereavement, the responses and risk factors associated with unrecovered grief and post-traumatic stress disorder in subjects who requested or refused supportive psychotherapy were compared.

Method

Fifty-two adult members of 237 families contacted within three months of a homicide attended a specialised out-patient clinic (32 requested, and 20 refused, supportive therapy) after a structured interview and completion of measures of grief (TRIG), trauma (RIES and DES), and death imagery.

Results

Only two risk factors (childhood history of sexual abuse and lack of religious faith) were associated with treatment seeking. Treatment-seeking subjects also scored significantly higher (P<0.001) on all measures of grief, trauma, and intrusive re-enactment imagery of the dying.

Conclusion

Adults who seek therapy after the homicide of a family member are highly reactive to all measures of trauma, grief, and death imagery.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 166 , Issue 4 , April 1995 , pp. 507 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1995 

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

Amick-McMullan, A., Kilpatrick, D. G., Veronen, L. J. & Smith, S. (1988) Family survivors of homicide victims: theoretical perspectives and an exploratory study. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 2, 21–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amick-McMullan, A., Kilpatrick, D. G. & Resnick, H. S. (1991) Homicide as a risk factor for PTSD among surviving family members. Behavior Modification, 15, 545–559.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bremner, J. D., Southwick, S. M., Johnson, D. R., Yehuda, R. & Charney, D. S. (1993) Childhood physical abuse and combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 235–239.Google ScholarPubMed
Green, M. L., Lindy, J. D., Grace, M. C. & Leonard, A. C. (1992) Chronic posttraumatic stress disorder and diagnostic comorbidity in a disaster sample. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 180, 760–766.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, C., Smith, E. & Spitznagel, E. (1994) Post-traumatic stress disorder in survivors of a mass shooting. American Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 82–88.Google ScholarPubMed
Parkes, C. M. (1990) Risk factors in bereavement: implications for the prevention and treatment of pathologic grief. Psychiatric Annals, 20, 308–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkes, C. M. (1993) Psychiatric problems following bereavement by murder or manslaughter. British Journal of Psychiatry, 162, 49–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rynearson, E. K. (1984) Bereavement after homicide: a descriptive study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 1452–1454.Google ScholarPubMed
Rynearson, E. K. (1994) Psychotherapy of bereavement after homicide. Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, 3, 341–347.Google ScholarPubMed
Rynearson, E. K. & McCreery, J. M. (1993) Bereavement after homicide: a synergism of trauma and loss. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 258–261.Google ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.