Research project Losing someone close to suicide
Bereaved individuals’ experiences of grief and an evaluation of a support program
Every year, around 1,500 people in Sweden die by suicide. Each loss has significant consequences for the many loved ones who are affected. Losing someone close to suicide is often described as a particularly painful and complex experience. The loss brings a form of grief that can differ from grief after other types of death: it often raises difficult existential questions, a strong desire to understand what led to the suicide, as well as complicated feelings of guilt and shame that can be burdensome. Over time, this grief may develop into psychosocial difficulties and affect both health and life circumstances. Despite this, the professional support offered to the bereaved remains insufficient, and uncertainty persists regarding which interventions actually help those affected by a suicide loss.
This doctoral project is carried out in collaboration with the national non-profit organization Spes (Suicide Prevention and Support to the bereaved). The aim is to deepen the understanding of how individuals who have lost a loved one to suicide experience and cope with their grief, how the loss affects their lives and health, and the role that different forms of support may play in this process. By studying participants in Spes’ support program A Way Forward, the project combines qualitative and quantitative perspectives within a multimethod design.
The project has two main objectives:
- To investigate bereaved individuals’ experiences of loss, grief, and life circumstances.
The study seeks to generate in-depth knowledge about how people describe the period following a suicide loss, the strategies they use to manage their grief, and the forms of social and professional support they have had access to. Through narrative interviews, participants’ accounts of life before and after the support intervention are analyzed, with attention to how different family roles, identity markers, and social contexts may shape their experiences. - To evaluate the potential significance and perceived impact of the support program.
Through participant observations, the study examines the program’s knowledge content and how support is exchanged between group leaders and participants, as well as among participants themselves. Follow-up interviews explore how participants experienced the program, what was perceived as meaningful or less helpful, and how they describe any changes in their grief process, life circumstances, and mental health after participation. Self-report questionnaires completed before and after the program capture variations among participants in grief, psychological well-being, post-traumatic stress, and sense of coherence, as well as changes over time.
By analyzing participants’ narratives alongside quantitative measures, the project provides an in-depth examination of bereaved individuals’ needs, experiences, and responses to support. The results are expected to contribute to the development of more evidence-informed interventions for people affected by suicide loss and to the broader research on grief, recovery, and psychosocial support. The project also strengthens national efforts to establish an evidence-based structure for postvention services following suicide. The overarching aim is to prevent social difficulties and ill-health among the bereaved and to improve access to support that can facilitate grief processing.
Doctoral student: Nea Strandkulle
Principal investigator / main supervisor: Anneli Silvén Hagström
Co-supervisor: Hilma Forsman