Prolonged grief and depression: A latent class analysis

Abstract

Recent trends in grief research have been exploring how symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (PGD) and depression co-occur in bereaved individuals using Latent Class Analysis (LCA). However, the PGD criteria have kept undergoing changes and the newest DSM-5 PGD criteria have not been captured in these studies. Also, previous LCA-grief studies have been conducted in Western cultures, focusing more on bereaved adult populations. In this study, we applied LCA on a non-Western sample of bereaved young and middle-aged adults to examine whether the consistently observed 3 latent classes will emerge. We explored if the socio-demographic, loss-related factors, religiousness, spirituality, and continuing bond to the deceased, differentiated the latent classes. We confirmed the 3 latent classes comprising the Resilient class (20.6%), the predominantly PGD class (44.7%), and the combined PGD and Depression class (34.7%). Age, time elapsed since the loss, continuing bond and relationship with the deceased as well as spiritual beliefs were the differential predictors of class membership. This study increases our conceptual and clinical understanding of the predictability of PGD symptomology outcome, according to the newest DSM-5 criteria following bereavement in a non-Western sample. In addition to the continuing bond which was the strongest correlate, attention should be paid to important sociocultural frameworks in grief management.