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ABSTRACT FROM: Shear MK, Wang Y, Skritskaya N, et al. Treatment of complicated grief in elderly persons: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry 2014; 71:1287–95.
What is already known on this topic
Complicated grief (CG, referred to as persistent complex bereavement disorder in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5)) is a debilitating bereavement experience resulting in functional and social impairment. Unlike normal grief, CG is characterised by unabated maladaptive thoughts, feelings and behaviours that obstruct the difficult, but natural progression of grief. CG has unique clinical features suggesting that tailored intervention is more appropriate for people with unrelenting and ineffective grief. CG therapy (CGT), developed by Shear and colleagues, is a manualised treatment protocol applied in individual psychotherapy. This specialised treatment for CG has been developed and evaluated earlier in pilot studies.1
Methods of the study
This trial involved 151 older adults (50 years and older) who scored 30 or greater on the Inventory of Complicated Grief (ICG) and were randomised to receive CGT (N=74) or interpersonal …
Footnotes
Competing interests None declared.