Bereavement after homicide. A comparison of treatment seekers and refusers

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.

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.

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.

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