Grief & Loss in Schizophrenia- Safety Plan

[Name of the Weriter]

[Name of the Institution]

Grief & Loss in Schizophrenia- Safety Plan

Introduction

In Canada and the United States, reports have focused national attention on the issue of safety in mental health service and suggest opportunities for improvement. These recent revised policies show that there is a good justification for believe that the safety of patients of schizophrenia can be improved by reducing the rates of attempted suicide. Cohort studies have shown rates of thought treatment of suicide in the range of 40-55% and attempted suicide in the range of 20-50%. The information about suicidal thoughts and previous suicide attempts are usually collected through interviews and follow-up reviews consecutive series of patients. (Siris, 2009)

Various levels can develop strategies of specific safety plans using the risk factors for suicide and attempted suicide schizophrenia and the recommendations contained in the national reports.

Discussion

Suicide is one of the leading causes of premature death among people with schizophrenia. Epidemiological investigation has established suicidal behaviour as more frequent in patients with schizophrenia than in the general population. Compared with the general population, schizophrenia patients have an 8.5-fold greater risk of suicide, a rate surpassed only by people with severe mood disorders. Between 40% and 50% of people with schizophrenia report suicidal ideation at some point in their lives, 20-50% have a history of suicide attempts and 4-13% eventually commit suicide. Much of the literature has suggested that 9-13% of patients with schizophrenia have completed suicide. However, in a recent review of the literature on suicide and schizophrenia, Most completed suicides appear to occur early in the disease process. However, the risk of suicidal behaviours in patients with schizophrenia is lifelong. Individuals with schizophrenia who attempt suicide appear to be more impulsive.

Grief and mourning in schizophrenia

Grief is a necessary response to loss and is defined as "the process of experiencing the psychological, behavioral, social and physical reactions to the perception of loss" (Rando, 1993, p. 24). Mourning is "the cultural or public display of grief through one's behaviors." To paraphrase, it is a conscious and unconscious process which serves to untie attachment to the past, to adapt to the loss and develop a new identity without what is lost (Rando, 1994). There is a need for the person experiencing the loss to suspend defensive responses long enough to experience the powerlessness that comes from not being able to restore the past.

After an episode of psychosis, a person needs to find meaning for what happened so as to integrate it into a sense of self that has been irrevocably changed. Larsen, in his paper on the meaning in first episode psychosis, uses an anthropological prism through which to describe this process. It must be noted that a person with a chronic illness may experience temporary re-emergence of intense grief and mourning at significant milestones or anniversaries and that such "short upsurges of grief" (STUGs) can be expected (Rando, 1993, p.64). Johnson and Rosenblatt describe this as "maturational grief" in order to distinguish it from ...