Abstract

BATISTA, Patrícia  and  SANTOS, José Carlos. The family in the grieving process of the suicida elderly. Revista Portuguesa de Enfermagem de Saúde Mental [online]. 2014, n.12, pp.17-24. ISSN 1647-2160.

Suicide portrays a situation, in which the subject decides to take his own life, trying to get rid of a situation of unbearable psychic pain. It is an act that generates substantial effects in all contexts, from the familiar to social context. Suicide in the elderly age group is a real problem, so a study of exploratory and descriptive nature that aimed to answer the following research question was made: What are the experiences felt by the family in the grieving process of the elderly who committed suicide? Seventeen bereaved relatives of elderly who committed suicide were interviewed. The sample was comprised mostly of elderly (10), in an age range of 35 to 72 years. The study sample revealed certain risk factors including isolation, loneliness, anguish and sense of abandonment, and also high levels of complicated grief and depression. It has shown yet the importance of the bonds, and the structure of social and family support in bereaved families. Understand how families deal with the problem of suicide is essential and also crucial to be aware of these profound changes in order to reduce the negative impact of these and improve their positive impact.

Keywords : Mourning; Suicide; Elderly; Family of suicidal.

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