Understanding and Responding to those Bereaved Through their Family Members' Substance Misuse

We will be talking to adults who have been bereaved following a family member’s drug or alcohol misuse (family being defined flexibly). On the basis of what we learn from them about their experience and how they coped with it, we will work with addiction and bereavement service providers and users to develop a set of guidelines for practitioners who provide support services for this group. Subject to further funding, we will go on to work with organisations to validate and test these guidelines.

At a time when substance misuse related deaths are on the increase, we are aiming to better understand and respond to the needs of the bereaved family members who are left behind to cope with a loss that tends to be unacknowledged, misunderstood and stigmatised by society. This aim is both theoretical, in terms of addressing a gap in knowledge about how individuals and society cope with this type of death and loss; and practical, in addressing a lack of guidance available to those providing bereavement and substance misuse support services.

With funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for three years (2012 to 2015), the research will be carried out by death studies’ academics from the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath in collaboration with addiction studies’ academics at the University of Stirling, together with a family member who has suffered this type of bereavement.

The research will carried out in two stages:

Stage One: talking to bereaved people

Researchers based in Bath and Stirling will interview up to 100 bereaved people, 50 from each study location.

Our style of interviewing will be informal and conversational, with interviewees being encouraged to talk at length about their experiences, not only through answering our questions, but also introducing their own issues. Their responses will be studied and analysed, and comparisons made between the two study areas, in order to learn more about bereavement through alcohol and drug misuse. The findings will be used to guide the development of practice guidelines in stage two of the study.

Stage Two: developing practice guidelines

Focus groups will be organised to include representatives from a range of local and national addiction and bereavement organisations and networks. Each group will discuss the research findings, particularly their implications for developing services for bereaved family members, and how best to support both family members and the professionals delivering this support. The findings from the focus groups will be used to inform the subsequent discussions to be carried out by a Working Group.

The Working Group will comprise professionals as well as family members. This group will develop a set of guidelines to inform the development and delivery of services (considering issues such as training, support to staff and other resources) for bereaved family members.

A Future Stage Three: Validating and testing the practice guidelines

With guidance from the researchers, this stage will be carried out by practitioners in their own organisational setting, with the aim of building flexibility into the guidelines to ensure their adaptability to different groups of bereaved people.