Clinical presentation and treatment outcome of African Americans with complicated grief.
OBJECTIVE
This study sought to examine whether ethnic differences occur in the presentation of patients with complicated grief or their treatment outcome.


METHODS
Analyses of a randomized controlled trial comparing a novel psychotherapy for complicated grief with interpersonal psychotherapy contrasted the clinical presentation, treatment alliance, and rates of treatment completion and response for 19 African Americans with complicated grief and 19 Caucasian Americans with complicated grief matched by sex, age, and baseline grief severity. Participants were randomly assigned to receive 16 sessions of either standard interpersonal psychotherapy or interpersonal psychotherapy enhanced with focused complicated grief components.


RESULTS
No differences were found in any clinical or treatment-related measure.


CONCLUSIONS
African Americans and Caucasian Americans with complicated grief did not differ significantly in clinical presentation, treatment alliance, treatment completion, and outcome. The results suggest that standard treatment for complicated grief can be provided successfully for different racial and economic groups.
Cruz
Mario
M
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. cruzm@upmc.edu
Scott
John
J
Houck
Patricia
P
Reynolds
Charles F
CF
Frank
Ellen
E
Shear
M Katherine
MK
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D005260:Female; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000379:methods; D014481:United States; D014728:Veterans / Q000523:psychology*