UCLA, University of Texas researchers develop assessment tool for bereavement disorder in youth

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Texas have developed an assessment tool for bereavement disorder among children and adolescents.

“For children and adults, having an age-appropriate checklist to assess symptoms is a critical first step in identifying bereaved youth who may need specialized support,” study researcher Julie Kaplow, PhD, of the University of Texas, Houston, said in a press release.

Kaplow, along with Christopher Layne, PhD, and Robert Pynoos, MD, of UCLA, analyzed interview and assessment data from more than 230 bereaved youth. They convened a panel of 10 internationally recognized grief specialists to review and rate each item on developmental appropriateness and relevance for assessing childhood grief.

Based on their feedback, Kaplow and colleagues created the “Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder Checklist — Youth Version,” which includes 39 questions and an easily intelligible rating system.

The checklist aims to gauge severity of grief and identify children whose grief may escalate. It includes language more easily understood by youth to detect symptoms that may differ from those found among adults.

While assessment tools designed to assess grief in adults look for symptoms within the past year, the new checklist is designed to detect symptoms that persist for 6 months.

“One year is simply too long a period of time for a child to suffer because of the risk for lost developmental opportunities,” Layne said in the release.

The checklist also accounts for characteristics of maladaptive grief unique to youth, such as rapidly changing moods.

“Children can be crying and grieving over the death of their mom or dad and then two minutes later be running around and laughing and playing with their friends,” Layne said. “Adults might incorrectly assume that the problem is something children are able to shrug off because they are not despondent for days on end like you might expect with an adult.”

Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder was recently added as a proposed diagnosis to the latest issue of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Checklist users have the option of participating in data collection for ongoing research that may lead full adoption or further refinement of the disorder in a future issue of the manual.