Adults who lose a parent may experience a greater increase in psychotropic medication use if they have fewer siblings, according to research published on Apr. 3 in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
The study highlights the mental health impact of parental loss in adulthood and suggests that siblings may play an important role in easing this burden. As family sizes decrease, understanding how social support affects bereavement is becoming more relevant.
Researchers used administrative data from Finland, examining individuals aged 35–55 between 2006 and 2016. The study included over one million adults whose parents died during this period and compared their use of prescribed psychotropic medications before and after parental death. The analysis found that those with no siblings had the largest increase in medication purchases following maternal death, while those with more siblings showed smaller increases. This pattern was not observed after paternal death.
The findings indicate that having siblings can help share caregiving responsibilities and provide emotional support during bereavement. "The current research underscores a clear pattern: the fewer siblings a person has, the greater the increase in psychotropic medication purchases observed surrounding a parent’s death," researchers said. The effect was most pronounced among only children and women, particularly after losing their mother.
The study also examined factors such as birth order, cause of parental death, and timing relative to loss but found that sibship size remained an important factor for maternal deaths regardless of these variables. Researchers noted that psychotropic medication use reflects both mental health status and treatment-seeking behavior, so some differences may relate to gendered patterns rather than distress alone.
As populations age and family sizes shrink, more adults will face parental loss without sibling support networks. While these results are based on Finnish data and may not apply everywhere, they suggest that social support structures are crucial during times of bereavement.
