Assessing Grief and Prolonged Grief Disorder: Can One Size Fit All?

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide conceptual, technical, and practical explanations for why a single instrument can serve as a multi-purpose measure of grief. Our thesis is based on a conceptualization of Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) as persistent, intense grief. We show how grief severity (i.e., a dimensional component) and persistence of intense grief based on the amount of time that has elapsed since the death (i.e., a temporal component) permit a reliable and accurate method for distinguishing pathological grief (i.e., PGD) from nonpathological grief. In principle, any instrument that assesses these basic dimensional and temporal aspects of grief adequately will suffice to assess grief and PGD. Psychiatric measurement tools can be adapted to fit essentially all applications aimed at assessing grief, both pathological and not.