Image copyright Getty Image caption The research was carried out by Stirling University and Australian National University
The death of a close friend can have an impact on health and wellbeing for up to four years, research has found.
Academics also suggest women experience worse effects than men.
They collected data from 26,515 people over 14 years, and found a range of negative consequences experienced by those who had a close friend die.
In the four years after a death, significantly adverse wellbeing was found in people both physically and psychologically.
Dr Liz Forbat, of Stirling University, said: "Much of the previous research around grief and bereavement has focused on the death of an immediate relative, often a spouse.
"We all know that when a partner, child or parent dies that the bereaved person is likely to grieve and feel worse for some time afterwards.
"The impact of the death of a friend, which most of us will experience, is not afforded the same sense of seriousness.
"There are pronounced declines in the health and wellbeing of people who'd had a friend die in the previous four years, yet employers, GPs and the community aren't focused on providing support to bereaved friends."
For women who experienced the death of a close friend there was a sharper drop in vitality, and they suffered a greater deterioration in mental health, the researchers found.
Dr Forbat added: "The death of a friend is a form of disenfranchised grief - one not taken so seriously or afforded such significance.
"This means their grief might not be openly acknowledged or expressed, and the impact trivialised.
"This research proves that the death of a friend matters and, as a universal human experience, the findings are applicable internationally.
"Our study suggests there is a need to ensure that services are available to assist people who have experienced the death of a friend, to help them develop necessary support networks."
The research - Death of a Close Friend: Short and Long-term Impacts on Physical, Psychological and Social Well-being - was carried out by Stirling University and Australian National University, and is to be published by scientific journal Plos One.
balgruffivancrone on May 13rd, 2019 at 14:18 UTC »
I wonder what the effects would be if there was a death of a second close friend within the 4 years period after the first event, would the effects of the second death event to mental health be compounded or lessened by the initial death event?
Gandelose on May 13rd, 2019 at 13:30 UTC »
You can also have post traumatic growth
mvea on May 13rd, 2019 at 12:10 UTC »
The title of the post is a copy and paste from the subtitle and second paragraph of the linked academic press release here:
Journal Reference:
Liu W-M, Forbat L, Anderson K (2019)
Death of a close friend: Short and long-term impacts on physical, psychological and social well-being.
PLoS ONE 14(4): e0214838.
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214838
Link: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0214838
Abstract
This paper reports the impact of a major life event–death–on the physical, psychological and social well-being of the deceased’s close friends. We utilised data from a large longitudinal survey covering a period of 14 years (2002–2015) consisting a cohort of 26,515 individuals in Australia, of whom 9,586 had experienced the death of at least one close friend. This longitudinal cohort dataset comprises responses to the SF-36 (health related quality of life measure) and allowed for analysis of the short and longer-term impacts of bereavement. In order to manage the heterogeneity of the socio-demographics of respondents who did/not experience a death event, we use a new and robust approach known as the Entropy Balancing method to construct a set of weights applied to the bereaved group and the control group (the group that did not experience death). This approach enables us to match the two groups so that the distribution of socio-demographic variables between the two groups are balanced. These variables included gender, age, marital status, ethnicity, personality traits, religion, relative socio-economic disadvantage, economic resources, and education and occupation and where they resided. The data show, for the first time, a range of negative and enduring consequences experienced by people following the death of a close friend. Significant adverse physical and psychological well-being, poorer mental health and social functioning occur up to four years following bereavement. Bereaved females experienced a sharper fall in vitality, suffered greater deterioration in mental health, impaired emotional and social functioning than the male counterparts up to four years after the death. The data show that the level of social connectedness plays an important role in bereavement outcomes. Specifically, we found that less socially active respondents experienced a longer deterioration in physical and psychological health. Finally, we found evidence that the death of a close friend lowered the respondent’s satisfaction with their health. Since death of friends is a universal phenomenon, we conclude the paper by reflecting on the need to recognise the death of a close friend as a substantial experience, and to offer support and services to address this disenfranchised grief. Recognising bereaved friends as a group experiencing adverse outcomes can be used internationally to prompt health and psychological services to assist this specific group, noting that there may be substantial longevity to the negative sequelae of the death of a friend. Facilitating bereaved people’s support networks may be a fruitful approach to minimising these negative outcomes.