Validation of prolonged grief disorder instrument for Portuguese population.

Abstract

This study aims to validate the Portuguese population the instrument PG-13 (Prolonged Grief Disorder), created by Prigerson et al. (2007) for diagnosis of prolonged grief, whose criteria are: the experience of loss generating intense longing and yearning for the deceased that extends for a period exceeding six months; emotional, cognitive and behavioral symptoms, dysfunction and meaningful life social and occupational functioning. The population includes 102 caregivers of patients accompanied by Support Team Palliative Care, Hospital Santa Maria. The participants are mostly female (82.4%) with mean age of 58.87 (SD: 13.41) and range between 15 and 84 years. Most respondents are widowed (62.1%), and 93.2% of these people are mourning the loss of a spouse. The second largest group of subjects corresponds to married persons (29.5%) who lost one of the parental figures (64.3%) and brothers (14.3%). Deceased family members have an average age of 68.68 (SD: 11.50), with amplitude between 27 and 89 years. The gender distribution in the group of deceased patients are 57.8% male and 42.2 % female. The internal consistency in the instrument is considered very good (a=.932). We found that 22.5% of the population manifests symptoms of prolonged grief. There were no significant differences in terms of socio-demographic variables or in the circumstances of illness and death. Prolonged Grief Disorder is more prevalent in female subjects (91.3%), widowed (68.2%) and in cases where the deceased was being the spouse (65.2%).