Mothers of children who died by suicide

• Published date: 01 October 2024
• Author: Bilha Paryente
• Date: 01 October 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.13027

RESEARCH

Mothers of children who died by suicide

Bilha Paryente

Department of Educational Psychology

Achva Academic College, Shikmim, Israel

Correspondence Bilha Paryente, Department of

Educational Psychology Achva Academic

College, Shikmim, Israel.

Email: bilhapar@gmail.com

Abstract

Background: This study examined the journey back to

routine of mothers of children who died by suicide.

Objective: This research was aimed at understanding

mothers’thoughts, emotions, and coping strategies with

the loss of their child, using the salutogenic approach and

examining their perceptions of available coping resources

to study their sense of coherence and thereby promote rele-

vant professional interventions.

Method: Semistructured in-depth interviews with 30 mothers

aged 50 to 65 years who had lost a child in the preceding 4 to

18 years.

Results: Following content analysis, data were structured

into three themes: (a) understanding of the new reality

through the difficulty of returning to one’s routineor choos-

ing life, adjusting to social life, and finding new recreational

activities; (b) coping with the help of others, avoiding cop-

ing, and dealing with the family by open conversations and

managing with the rest of the children; and (c) emotional

processing of the loss seen through the shock and the sense

of having overlooked something, guilt, and relief.

Conclusions: Mothers were found to be on a complex jour-

ney to restore routine after an upsetting event. They built

a routine for themselves with an awareness of the difficulty

of this process as they attempted to return to their routine

or to change it.

Implications: Informed and tailored interventions could

provide a partial sense of relief for mothers of children

who have committed suicide.

KEYWORDS

mothers coping, qualitative research, sense of coherence, suicide

The death of a child breaks the natural cycle of life and undermines the perception of life as we

know it. The psychological toll of bereavement is heavy, both during the immediate response to

loss and in the long-term harm to everyday life. People experience grief as a significant

Received: 29 May 2023 Revised: 31 December 2023 Accepted: 3 March 2024

DOI: 10.1111/fare.13027

© 2024 National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2024;73:2621–2638. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 2621

disruption in their lives. They report severe emotional distress, including intense feelings of

shock, pain, anger, and guilt. Bereavement has been conceptualized as an interruption in the

course of life (Kliem et al., 2018; Neimeyer, 2016; Root & Exline, 2014; Rubin et al., 2012;

Song et al., 2010).

Suicide can occur at any time during the life cycle starting in the early school-age years and

is a leading cause of death worldwide (World Health Organization, 2022). The suicide of a child

is a devastating and traumatic experience for any parent (Lee, 2022). Parental bereavement

after a child’s suicide is a unique and complex experience that can have long-lasting effects on

the parents’emotional and psychological well-being.

Some common emotional reactions that parents may experience after the suicide of their

child include intense grief, guilt, shame, anger, confusion, and disbelief. Parents may also strug-

gle with feelings of isolation and social withdrawal, as they may feel that others do not under-

stand what they are going through (Lee, 2022).

PARENTAL BEREAVEMENT

Previous studies examined the coping of bereaved parents after stillbirth (Pollock et al., 2020),

death from cancer (Polita et al., 2020), and death from drug overdose (Titlestad et al., 2021). To

date, few studies have addressed parents’grieving for a child who has died by suicide (Lee, 2022;

Lindqvist et al., 2008; Maple et al., 2010; Pitman et al., 2014; Ross et al., 2018) and these parents’

sense of coherence. Studies related to suicide bereavement examined social stigma (Cvinar, 2005),

mental health, sorrow (Sveen &Walby, 2008), complex sadness, suicidal thoughts, and Internet

group support intervention (Feigelman & Gorman, 2008;Mitchelletal.,2004).

The studies related to counseling or family therapy interventions focused on mourning,

investigating the long-term effects of interpersonal factors such as social support, self-disclosure

and thwarted belongingness among close family and friends (Levi-Belz & Birnbaum, 2022).

Feigelman et al. (2009) studied parental personal growth after suicide. Their findings suggest

that growth after loss may be associated with better mental health of survivors. Another study

that compared bereaved parents from suicide with other reasons of death revealed that post-

traumatic growth scores were lower in bereaved parents by suicide than in parents bereaved for

other causes of death (Moore et al., 2015). To date, no research used a salutogenic approach to

examine the total experience of mothers on their journey back to routine, after their child’s sui-

cide. Salutogenic research reveals the strength and resilience inherent in the experience. The pre-

sent study explored the experiences of mothers bereaved by child suicide based on a salutogenic

approach by evaluating the mothers’sense of coherence following the suicide of a child out of

an approach of revealing their sources of resilience to return to routine.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND STUDY GOALS

Parents cope with various difficulties when raising their children, and prior research has linked

parental coping with the conceptualization of the salutogenic approach (Einav &

Margalit, 2020; Pisula & Kossakowska, 2010), which focuses on the healthy side of the health–

illness (ease–dis-ease) continuum (Sagy, 2015). Its three components are (a) comprehensibility,

or the extent to which one perceives the world as predictable and one’s problems as understand-

able and clear; (b) manageability, or the extent to which one perceives that one has access to

suitable coping resources and rely on them; and (c) meaningfulness, or the extent to which one

feels that one’s life has emotional meaning (Antonovsky, 1987; Bauer et al., 2020; Mana &

Sagy, 2020; Sagy, 2015). People’s sense of coherence reflects the general, global orientation of

their confidence in the extent to which they have control over events in their lives, how they

2622 FAMILY RELATIONS