Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY, USA.
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA.
J Affect Disord. 2018 Feb;227:1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2017.09.056. Epub 2017 Oct 10.
We investigated lifetime suicide exposures and bereavement among a representative sample of American adults from the 2016 General Social Survey.
Questions on lifetime suicide exposures, bereavement and mental health status were administered to 1432 respondents. Suicide exposed and bereaved respondents were compared to non-exposed respondents on three different measures of mental health functioning with cross tabulations and means comparison tests.
51% of respondents had exposures to one suicide or more during their lifetimes, and 35% were deemed bereaved by suicide, having experienced moderate to severe emotional distress from their losses. Findings suggested more exposures and bereavements were associated with greater numbers of bad mental health days and more expectations of "having nervous breakdowns" but with no clear associations with CES-D scores.
These findings suggest suicide exposures and bereavement are far more pervasive than commonly thought, with more than half of the population exposed and a third bereaved. Health professionals need to more actively assess for suicide exposures and bereavements, and be vigilant for significant impacts of suicide even when the suicide decedent is not a first degree family relative, helping to reduce the mental health distress presently associated with these experiences.
我们调查了来自 2016 年一般社会调查的美国成年人代表性样本中的终身自杀暴露和丧亲情况。
对 1432 名受访者进行了关于终身自杀暴露、丧亲和心理健康状况的问题调查。通过交叉表和均值比较检验，将有自杀暴露和丧亲经历的受访者与无暴露的受访者在三种不同的心理健康功能衡量标准上进行比较。
51%的受访者在一生中曾有过一次或多次自杀暴露，35%的受访者因自杀而感到丧亲之痛，他们经历了中度到重度的情绪困扰。研究结果表明，更多的暴露和丧亲经历与更多的不良心理健康天数和更多的“精神崩溃”预期有关，但与 CES-D 评分没有明确关联。
这些发现表明，自杀暴露和丧亲现象比人们普遍认为的更为普遍，超过一半的人口有过暴露经历，三分之一的人经历过丧亲之痛。医疗保健专业人员需要更积极地评估自杀暴露和丧亲情况，并对即使自杀死者不是直系亲属的情况下的重大影响保持警惕，以减轻这些经历目前带来的心理健康困扰。
