Writing Projects: Lessening Undergraduates’ Unique Suicidal Bereavement

To assess if writing projects lessen undergraduates’ grief following a loved one’s suicide, 40 students whose loved one died by suicide in the previous 2 years wrote on 4 occasions over 2 weeks about profound topics or trivial topics. All participants completed pre- & posttest measures of grief & self-reported health visits, & 75% completed the same measures at 6-week mailed follow-up. As expected, individuals in the profound condition reported less grief associated with suicide at follow-up than those in the trivial condition. However, the trivial & profound groups were not significantly different in general grief or health visits. Writing about grief associated with the suicide of a loved one appeared to reduce suicidal grief associated with this event. (28 refs.)