Subjective Distress Associated with Sudden Loss in Clients with Severe Mental Illness

Abstract

Data from interviews with 276 community mental health clients diagnosed with a severe mental illness were used to examine the association between clients' subjective distress from sudden loss of a close friend or loved one and PTSD symptoms. Over three-quarters of these clients reported sudden losses in their lives, and regression analysis showed that distress related to sudden losses accounted for significant and unique variance in PTSD symptoms when all other sources of traumatic distress were controlled. Practitioners should routinely assess interpersonal losses among clients with SMI and offer brief interventions specifically aimed at helping clients cope with such losses.

Public Mental Health Clients with Severe Mental Illness and Probable Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Trauma Exposure and Correlates of Symptom Severity

“…There is significant overlap between PTSD, complicated grief, and depression (Bonanno et al., ; Burke, Neimeyer, & McDevitt‐Murphy, ; Craig, Sossou, Schnak, & Exxex, ; Pivar & Field, ), and recent trials report the success of cognitive–behavioral therapy in treating grief reactions in the general population (de Groot et al., ; Shear, Frank, Houck, & Reynolds, ). The findings from this study support O'Hare and Sherrer's () suggestion that clients with SMI may benefit from counseling that targets complicated grief reactions.…”

“…Although the types of traumatic exposure commonly experienced by people with SMI have been previously reported (e.g., Mueser et al., ; McFarlane et al., ; Goldberg & Garno, ; Goodman et al., ), limited data are available on which events are most distressing and most likely to lead to PTSD. In a survey of trauma exposure and associated distress and PTSD symptoms in people with SMI, O'Hare and Sherrer () reported that the most distressing event was sexual assault (either in childhood or adulthood), followed by physical assault, and the sudden unexpected death of a loved one; sexual assault was the strongest predictor of PTSD symptoms, followed by unexpected death. Another study of individuals with SMI reported that exposure to childhood sexual abuse was more uniquely predictive of PTSD than any other types of trauma (Mueser et al., ), whereas Goldberg and Garno () found that a history of adult sexual assault or a history of suicide or homicide in a close friend or relative were more strongly related to PTSD.…”

Schizophrenia patients with and without Post‐traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have different mood symptom levels but same cognitive functioning

“…A limitation of the method for assessing trauma was that the approach probably led to underreporting of traumatic events that are common in the general population , such as the sudden, unexpected death of a loved one. These are even more common in people with severe mental illness . This is a significant limitation for the current study.…”

Mechanistic role of emotion regulation in the PTSD and alcohol association.

“…Mediators of this association have been posited; however, to date, tests of these mediated pathways have focused primarily on coping mechanisms. Both coping style (e.g., emotion-focused coping) and coping motives have been found to function in this capacity (e.g., Kaysen et al, 2007; Lehavot, Stappenbeck, Luterek, Kaysen, & Simpson, 2014; O’Hare & Sherrer, 2011; Staiger, Melville, Hides, Kambouropoulos, & Lubman, 2009; Yeater, Austin, Green, & Smith, 2010). However, affect regulation more broadly, as it applies to both positive and negative affect, is fundamental to theoretical models of alcohol consumption (Curtin & Lang, 2007; Stritzke, Patrick, & Lang, 1995).…”