Father Kills Mother: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the Children

Abstract

Results of a study of over 100 children whose father killed their mother have been summarized and principles for practice have been formulated. All children orphaned by the death of one parent at the other’s hands should be seen as soon as possible in a child psychiatry department and assessed. An immediate crisis intervention will probably be needed if they witnessed the killing to prevent PTSD. Bereavement counselling will be helpful in most cases. The caretakers will need support and help with their own mourning. Placement, access and custody, compensation, seeing the body, attending the funeral and dealing with family conflict will all need consideration. Long-term follow-up and further research are recommended.

Annotation: Childhood Bereavement Following Parental Death

“…The findings of both Black and Harris-Hendriks (1992), and Pfeffer and colleagues (1997) can, therefore, be regarded as consistent with those from the childhood post-traumatic stress literature. Children who have experienced highly stressful events, particularly in a context where death occurs, are at risk of PTSD (Yule, 1994).…”

“…There is little to suggest that bereaved children experience comorbid disorders, except where a particularly traumatic death such as the murder or suicide of a parent (or sibling) occurs. In such cases, depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can co-occur, leading to greater difficulties in dealing with the death (see, e.g., Black & Harris-Hendriks, 1992). Further details concerning children's responses to traumatic death are presented in the section on Moderating Variables.…”

“…The limited evidence available indicates that traumatic parental death is associated with particular forms of child disturbance. Black and Harris-Hendriks (1992) present a series of some 100 children referred to psychiatric services following the murder of one parent by the other, and describe the occurrence of PTSD symptoms amongst these children.…”

Murdered women’s children: A social emergency and gloomy reality

“…(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29) Black and colleagues, as a result of their experience with these troubled children, suggested some recommendations that include: immediately after the killing, children's placement should be with familiar people; primary health care services should be alerted about the children and early consultations sought from child mental health services; expert advice should be sought regarding the possibility of attending their mother's funeral and of visiting their father. (9) In the longer term, permanent placement planning should begin as soon as possible: the emergency placement should not become permanent by default; therapeutic help should be available as needed, especially for children who witnessed the killing. Improved ability to identify women who are at risk for IPF may facilitate prevention and enable more appropriate allocation of resources.…”

“…Even when publications concerning femicide include some information on children, the data are always limited to the description of a few isolated cases. (9) We focused on this important, usually ignored, aspect and we updated a previous study about the number of femicides occurring in Italy between 1st January, 2012 and 31st October, 2014. Potential long lasting effects of these traumatic events for the children of a woman who dies a violent death are also discussed.…”