Understanding the outcomes and experiences of people who access support programs following a sudden, traumatic bereavement: data extraction for a scoping review

Abstract

Suicide postvention support is recognised as a vital component of suicide prevention. Systematic collection of outcome measures within postvention support allow for service providers to understand the effectiveness and impacts of a service. While many forms of postvention support exists, there is limited understanding around the sensitive and appropriate use of outcomes measures in suicide postvention services. Given this scant understanding, literature from the broader sudden death bereavement research was included to inform the suicide bereavement sector including postvention. This systematic scoping review was informed by the JBI framework, and in alignment with the PRISMA ScR statement. The review sought to explore how programs and interventions that assist individuals bereaved by suicide or other sudden, traumatic deaths gather outcome measures. A search of peer-reviewed literature in was undertaken with MEDLINE, PsycInfo and PsycArticles (hosted by ProQuest), and EBSCOhost, with additional hand-searching. The search strategy identified 1,145 papers, of which 49 met the inclusion criteria after full text screening. Data from the papers were charted into an a priori extraction form, which is the basis of this data set.