Avoidant and approach-oriented coping strategies, meaning making, and mental health among adults bereaved by suicide and fatal overdose: A prospective path analysis

Avoidant and approach-oriented coping strategies, meaning making, and mental health among adults bereaved by suicide and fatal overdose: A prospective path analysis
Behavioral Sciences; by Jamison S. Bottomley, Robert A. Neimeyer; 5/25
The current study shed light on the role of avoidance- and approach-oriented coping strategies in aggravating or ameliorating the longer-term distress of the survivors of such losses, roughly half of whom showed continued clinical-level elevations of prolonged grief, posttraumatic stress, and depressive symptomatology two years following the death. The results provided cautionary evidence that avoidant coping through denial, distraction, and behavioral disengagement prospectively predicted higher levels of prolonged grief and posttraumatic stress, with the impairment of meaning making about the loss accounting for much of the variance in the former outcome. In contrast, actively approaching others for support and attempting to confront and surmount the problems posed by bereavement consistently predicted a reduction in prolonged grief, posttraumatic stress, and depression symptoms in the months that followed. The latter impacts were found to be fully mediated by the enhancement of meaning making about the loss, carrying practical implications for bereavement support and grief therapy for this vulnerable population of mourners.