Screening for dysfunctional Covid-19 grief: A replication and extension

Abstract

As Covid-19 deaths continue, so does the grief that is experienced by those impacted by such loss. Accordingly, the Pandemic Grief Scale (PGS) was created as a screening tool for health professionals to use in identifying individuals suffering from dysfunctional levels of this form of grief. With the development of this measure, this paper serves to replicate and extend the psychometric findings on the PGS, using an independent US sample of 318 adults who lost a significant person from Covid-19. The results of this study largely replicated the findings of the original PGS study by demonstrating acceptable parameters on factor structure, diagnostic and discrimination accuracy, and evidence of convergent validity. However, convergent validity support was not found with the lack of correlation between PGS scores and a measure of positive well-being. The results of this study also recommended a lower cut-score than the one proposed by the original PGS study. Overall, these results support the PGS as a psychometrically sound screening tool for assessing pandemic-related, dysfunctional grief.