title: Complicated spiritual grief I: relation to complicated grief symptomatology following violent death bereavement.
abstract: Losing a loved one to violent death has been associated with poor mental health outcomes, including posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and complicated grief (CG), a protracted, debilitating, and sometimes life-threatening reaction to loss. In addition, recent research suggests that traumatic loss can violate mourners' basic assumptive worldviews, and can precipitate a spiritual crisis following loss, also known as complicated spiritual grief (CSG). The present cross-sectional study investigated these multidimensional outcomes in a diverse sample of 150 grievers. The authors found that (a) violently bereaved individuals reported greater CG and CSG than did individuals bereaved by natural death; (b) CG and CSG were correlated across the larger sample, and yet are theoretically different constructs; and (c) specific cause of death (natural anticipated, natural sudden, homicide, suicide, or fatal accident) differentially predicted levels of CG and CSG. Implications of these findings for a clearer understanding of spiritual coping in the wake of troubling loss are noted, as well as for intervention with mourners struggling with clinical complications.
authors: a Department of Psychology , The University of Memphis , Memphis , Tennessee , USA.
authors: Laurie A
authors: LA
authors: Burke
authors: Robert A
authors: RA
authors: Neimeyer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001601:Bereavement; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003643:Death; D005260:Female; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D029181:Spirituality; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult