Women's experiences of traumatic bereavement following the death of a child in the Sichuan earthquake 2008

Natural disasters and bereavement of a child are severe adverse life events that carry an increased risk of long term psychological problems including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and prolonged grief disorder (PGD). Women who have faced these circumstances simultaneously through losing a child in a disaster therefore have high vulnerability to chronic mental health morbidity. Adequate social support, receiving professional intervention, having other living child and seeing child’s body could be protective factors for them. But the effect of having a subsequent baby is unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of anxiety, depression, PTSD and PGD in women 30 months after they had experienced the death of a child in the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan (China).

The research took a quantitative approach by using face-to-face structured interviews with existing standard instruments. A comparison was made between women who had given birth to a baby since bereavement and those who had not.

Of the 226 participants, 82.3% (186) had clinically significant symptoms of depression, 82.3% (186) of PTSD, 88.9% (201) of PGD and 33.6% (76) of anxiety. Overall, 85.4% (193) of the women were experiencing more than one psychological problem. The most prevalent co-morbidity was co-occurring symptoms of depression, PTSD and PGD (103/226). Women without a subsequent baby showed significantly higher vulnerability of having the symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD or PGD than those with a baby, even after controlling for social support, marital relationship and violence, having professional intervention and seeing children’s bodies.

Overall, women who faced disasters and child loss simultaneously were at high risk of having long-term psychological problems, especially symptoms of depression, PTSD and PGD. Having a subsequent baby after disasters was significantly associated with lower rates of psychological problems, but mental health morbidity remains high among them.