Some Psychiatric Non-Sequelae of Childhood Bereavement

¹ Senior Lecturer and First Assistant, Department of Psychiatry, University of Birmingham
² Senior Registrar, Naburn Hospital, York

The results of an investigation into parental bereavement during childhood in a series of 279 psychiatric patients from the Leeds area is presented. The series consists of 162 depressive patients (103 in-patients and 59 out-patients), 69 schizophrenic patients and 48 individuals suffering from anxiety state. Control data have been obtained from a group of 100 psychiatrically normal Leeds general hospital out-patients and from two sets of control material originally employed by Felix Brown (1961).

The findings are as follows:

1. In-patient, but not out-patient, depressives show an excess of maternal bereavement before the 15th birthday which is just significant at the p < 0.05 level.

2. Schizophrenics show no excess of childhood parental mortality.

3. Patients with anxiety state show no excess of childhood parental mortality.

4. There is no excess of paternal mortality for any diagnostic category.

5. None of the diagnostic categories shows any significant excess of parental bereavement occurring at a particular stage in childhood.

The significance of these findings is discussed.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. S. Floerchinger Bereavement in Late Adolescence: Interventions on College Campuses Journal of Adolescent Research, January 1, 1991; 6(1): 146 - 156. [Abstract]

				M. O. Huttunen and P. Niskanen Prenatal Loss of Father and Psychiatric Disorders Arch Gen Psychiatry, April 1, 1978; 35(4): 429 - 431. [Abstract] [PDF]