title: Examining the role of trauma, personality, and meaning in young prolonged grievers.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Younger spouses or partners have been understudied in the prolonged grief literature. The purpose of this study was to determine rates of prolonged grief in young spouses or partners and the associations between prolonged grief and personality styles (specifically, narcissistic, histrionic, and obsessive), trauma history, and the perceived meaning of the loss in the young conjugally bereaved.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants between 20 and 50 years old who lost a spouse/partner to cancer 6 months-3 years prior to the study completed the following measures during one time point (via phone or in person interviews): Prolonged Grief-13, traumatic life events questionnaire, Millon clinical multiaxial inventory-III, and grief meaning reconstruction inventory.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fifty-six spouses and partners (51.8% women) completed the interviews (mean age: 44.54 ± 4.20 years). The participants (49.1%) reported elevated rates of prolonged grief and 12.3% of the participants were diagnosed with prolonged grief with the recently published diagnostic algorithm. Bivariate analyses demonstrated an association between prolonged grief and negative meaning of the loss (r = 0.73; p < 0.01) and the frequency of the traumatic events (r = 0.23; p < 0.05). Multivariate analyses revealed that negative meaning of the loss was the only significant predictor of prolonged grief (Beta = 0.71; p = 0.0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Elevated levels of prolonged grief were found in this population, suggesting a need for further research into young spousal grief. Young bereaved spouses may lack flexibility in reconstructing their view of the world as the death may invalidate their previously held world beliefs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York 10022, USA. tomarkea@mskcc.org
authors.forename: Alexis
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tomarken
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roth
authors.forename: Jimmie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Holland
authors.forename: Ollie
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ganz
authors.forename: Sherry
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schachter
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kose
authors.forename: Paul Michael
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Ramirez
authors.forename: Rhiannon
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: Christian J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Nelson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008016:Life Change Events; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009518:New York; D010465:Perception; D010551:Personality; D036301:Qualitative Research; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012944:Social Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D018454:Spouses / Q000523:psychology*; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D017805:Widowhood / Q000523:psychology*