The impact of a child’s suicide on family structure and relationships between its members

The main objective of this article is to analyse the available literature on the impact of a child’s suicide on family structure and relationships between family members. The available literature from 1976-2021 was analysed. The analysis showed that families abandoned after the suicide death of a family member experience feelings of hurt, denial, shock and anger, resentment, shame and guilt. Social ostracism affects the social exclusion of families affected by the suicide death of a child, who are deprived of adequate support from institutions and the community. Bereaved families, being in shock and confusion at the beginning of their bereavement, had no one to turn to for help. The sudden death of a child by suicide leads to a deepening of the trauma and makes the grieving process impossible. People who have suffered a loss feel the need to give the death some meaning. The results of the literature search are, however, not satisfactory, contributing to my own research in terms of the family’s experience of bereavement following the death of their child by suicide. The findings show little development in the topic of postvention following the suicide death of a child. There is no public education on this subject.