Table 2.
Cause of death and percent of sample reporting suicidal ideation (SI) in bereavement.
| Cause of Death | % of Sample Endorsing SI | Time Since Death | Measured by | Population | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suicide | 16% | 1 month | Beck Depression Inventory (BDI); item 9 | N = 60; First-degree relatives and spouses part of a crisis intervention study | Mitchell et al., 2005 [18] |
| 22% | <8 weeks | BDI; item 9 | N = 122; First-degree relatives and spouses | de Groot et al., 2010 [19] | |
| 43% | 44.4 months (mean) |
BDI; item 9 | N= 28; Family members seeking mental health services | Williams et al., 2018 [20] | |
| 14.1% a | 6 months | Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS) | N = 142; Adults, family, and friends of deceased | Kõlves et al., 2019 [21] | |
| 26% | 2.5 months | Paykel suicide items (PSI) b | N = 153; First-degree relatives and spouses | de Groot et al., 2013 [25] | |
| 9% | 8–10 years | Paykel suicide items (PSI) b | N = 68; First-degree relatives and spouses | de Groot et al., 2013 [25] | |
| 26.7% | Not reported | Endorsement of “Have you ever seriously contemplated suicide in the past one year?” c | N = 30; family members | Song et al., 2005 [22] | |
| 42% | Less than 3 years (n = 20; 21.5%) More than 3 years (n = 73; 78.5%) |
Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire (SIQ) | N = 93; family members | Santos et al., 2015 [23] | |
| 49% | 5.1 years | Endorsement of “Have you ever thought of taking your life, even though you would not actually do it?” d | N = 614; 48% of sample was blood-related to deceased | Pitman, et al., 2016 [16] | |
| 27.3% | <12 months | Endorsement of “During the past 12 months did you ever seriously think about committing suicide?” | N = 68; family members | Cerel et al., 2005 [17] | |
| Accidental overdose | No results found | ||||
| Cancer | 16.5% | 6.5 months (median) | Yale Evaluation of Suicidality (YES) | N = 127; Adult informal caregivers from recruited from major metropolitan hospitals | Abbott et al., 2014 [11] |
| 31.4% | 2–6 months | Endorsement of “Have you had suicidal thoughts at any time during the previous year?” | N = 501; Family members of deceased patients from registered from the Korean Terminal Cancer Patient Information System | Song et al., 2012 [28] | |
| Dementia | 13.7% | <2 years | Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire—Revised (SBQ—R); item 2 e | N = 566; Adult informal caregivers from the mainly from Australia, Canada, and the US | O’Dwyer et al., 2015 [33] |
| HIV/AIDs | Not reported f | Rosengard et al., 1997 [34] | |||
| Cardiovascular Disease | No results found |
a % of individuals with high risk of suicidal ideation as indicated by cut-off point of 2 for BSS. b individuals with a score >8 were considered to have suicidal ideation. c participant responses were operationalized in two ways: “never/sometimes” or “seriously”. d participant responses of yes or no to “Have you ever thought of taking your life, even though you would not actually do it?”. e participant responses of “rarely” or “never” to the item “how often have you thought about killing yourself in the past year?” were classified as negative for suicidal ideation, and those who responded “sometimes” “often” and “very often” were classified as positive for suicidal ideation. f Rosengard and Folkman reported that 55% of their sample endorsed suicidal ideation at some point during the study, including periods pre- and post-bereavement. For that reason, this percentage is not reported in Table 2.