Initial psychological response to parental death
M. J. Horowitz, J. Krupnick, N. Kaltreider, N. Wilner, A. Leong and C. Marmar
A cohort of patients seeking help at a clinical research center providing
time-limited brief therapy for posttraumatic stress disorders was
assembled. The single life event experienced by each was death of a parent.
A nonequivalent comparison group was gathered by review of hospital death
records. Both groups received the same type of evaluation interview and
completed the same measures, which were similar to those done for both
groups by the clinical interviewer. These data indicated that while both
groups contained persons with medium to high distress levels, the patient
group was most uniformly composed of such persons; when compared with the
field-study group, the patient group had significant and important
elevations of distress levels.
