PRESS RELEASE: Lockdown and isolation: Increased suffering in bereaved parents
The COVID-19 lockdown and period of isolation are leaving bereaved parents without physical contact with family and friends, thereby increasing their experience of trauma associated with loss, their sense of aloneness and the risk of relationship breakdown.
The second lockdown in Victoria, which has the potential to spread across Australia, has raised concerns that this adverse impact on bereaved parents will continue.
Dr Timothy Keogh, President of Sydney mental health charity PENTHOS, said the mental health of grieving parents could significantly decline if they are unable to process their grief due to forced isolation and an inability to escape their surroundings. It can then progress to become prolonged or complicated grief.
He said, “Such grief can have adverse psychological impacts on couples and families, in some cases leading to relationship breakdown, divorce and developmental impacts on surviving children.”
It is estimated that 7 per cent of the grieving population are experiencing complicated grief, according to Shear’s research conducted in 2012. They often require more help and support to get through this period.
“Like a wound that does not heal, couples experiencing such grief become affected by thoughts, feelings and behaviours that disturb and disrupt their relationships with others. Prolonged or complicated grief is a condition that is often not easily recognised or understood, but which can have far-reaching consequences.”
PENTHOS offers a free therapy program for couples experiencing complicated grief over the loss of a child, which has recently been made accessible to rural and remote areas that often have limited mental health services.
As well as face-to-face sessions, the program can be delivered online via video consultation, allowing continued access to their services in NSW if a second lockdown is initiated.
“There are limited publicly available services available, especially to help couples to deal with prolonged and complicated grief,” said Dr Keogh.
“The charity PENTHOS was founded to meet this gap in services. Its founders and donors understand the real human and economic costs associated with unremitting grief in couples and families.”
For more information, contact POPCOM Account Coordinator Sophie Richardson on [email protected].
