Loneliness and disturbed grief: a comparison of parents who lost a child to suicide or accidental death.

Grief reactions of two types of sudden untimely deaths were compared: the loss of a child by accidental death and the loss of a child by suicidal death. Three hypotheses were tested. The degree of disturbed grief and the degree of loneliness in parents who lost a child to suicidal death were compared to those reactions in parents who lost a child to accidental death. The relationship between the degree of disturbed grief and the degree of loneliness was assessed. For suicide survivors, grief and loneliness tended to rise over time, whereas grief and loneliness decreased over time for accidental death survivors. The findings from this study indicate that the loss of a child from an accidental death places a parent at high risk for disturbed grief and loneliness, and at even higher risk when the loss is a result of suicidal death.