How suicide-bereaved family members experience the inquest process: a qualitative study using thematic analysis
UMass Chan Affiliations
Implementation Science and Practice Advances Research CenterDepartment of Emergency Medicine
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2019-12-01Keywords
Inquestbereavement
coroner
family members
qualitative
suicide
Family, Life Course, and Society
Mental and Social Health
Psychiatry and Psychology
Psychological Phenomena and Processes
Psychology
Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
PURPOSE: Suicide bereavement confers unique risk and distress. In several countries, bereaved family members are called on to attend an inquest, an official public inquiry into deaths caused by external factors. The current study aimed to explore how suicide-bereaved family members (n = 18) experienced the inquest process, through qualitative semi-structured interviews. METHOD: Participants were identified via coroner's records and had previously taken part in a case-control study. RESULTS: Qualitative findings indicated four overall themes with respect to family members' experiences of the inquest process: "inquest as fearfully unknown", "structural processes of the inquest", "enduring public and private pain to obtain answers" and "gaining answers and making sense". Most family members experienced distress and fear as a result of several elements of the inquest process. Some participants had positive experiences but these did not outweigh the distress experienced by the majority of family members regarding their overall experience of the inquest process. CONCLUSIONS: Key recommendations include informing family members of the main aspects and purpose of the inquest process beforehand, adapting the process to maximise the privacy and comfort of the bereaved relatives, and restricting graphic evidence being heard, where possible, to minimise distress experienced by family members.Source
Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being. 2019 Dec;14(1):1563430. doi: 10.1080/17482631.2018.1563430. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.1080/17482631.2018.1563430Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/41195PubMed ID
30693845Related Resources
Rights
© 2019 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1080/17482631.2018.1563430
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © 2019 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.