Nassau Community College, Sociology, Dept, Garden City, New York 11530, USA.
Omega (Westport). 2011;63(4):291-316. doi: 10.2190/OM.63.4.a.
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.
这项对比调查对比了 571 位因各种原因失去孩子的父母：48 位因与毒品相关的死亡和过量而失去孩子，462 位因自杀而失去孩子，24 位因自然死亡，37 位因主要意外死亡。这些群体在悲伤困难、心理健康问题、创伤后应激障碍和污名化方面进行了比较。结果显示，自杀丧亲父母和因毒品相关死亡而失去孩子的父母在这些方面没有明显差异。然而，当将自杀和与毒品相关的死亡幸存者与意外和自然死亡损失案例进行具体对比时，出现了一种一致的模式，表明前者在悲伤和心理健康问题上比后两个亚组更困扰。当控制失去后的时间和性别差异作为协变量时，这些差异仍然存在。这些发现表明，公众普遍存在的强烈的针对吸毒和精神疾病的污名化，给这些父母带来了巨大的挑战，因为他们在失去孩子后，从重要他人那里得到的同情回应较少。
