Journal
PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH
Volume 302, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2021.114033
Keywords
Bereavement; Prolonged grief disorder; Depression; Posttraumatic stress; Avoidance
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Research suggests that Bereavement can lead to significant mental health problems, including Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) being identified as a distinct condition. Through latent class analysis, bereaved individuals can be grouped into low, high, and predominantly PGD symptom subgroups, with higher levels of anxious and depressive avoidance behaviors observed in the PGD subgroup.
Bereavement may precipitate significant mental health problems. Prolonged grief disorder (PGD) is included in section 2 of the forthcoming DSM-5 text-revision (DSM-5-TR). Research using earlier criteria of disordered grief showed that bereaved people may have distinct symptom patterns-including high, low, and comorbid symptomatology. Building on that work, we used latent class analysis to identity subgroups of bereaved individuals based on their endorsement of symptoms of PGD (per DSM-5-TR), posttraumatic stress, and depression. We also examined if class-membership was associated with socio-demographic and loss-related variables and anxious and depressive avoidance behaviors. Self-reported data were available from 436 people, mostly women, mostly bereaved by the death of their partner or child. Three subgroups were identified, evidencing low symptom levels (34.2%), predominantly PGD symptoms (38.7%), and high symptom levels (27%), respectively. Shorter time since loss, lower education, loss of a partner, and unnatural/violent deaths increased chances of inclusion in the high symptoms class. Anxious and depressive avoidance were lowest in the low symptoms class, higher in the PGD class, and strongest in the high symptoms class. Findings show that PGD per DSM-5-TR is a distinct condition and underscore that reducing avoidance behaviors is important in the treatment of post-loss psychopathology.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available