Griefinar: Measuring Grief
The National Alliance for Grieving Children sponsored a free Griefinar (on-line learning) on Measuring Grief: Challenges and Opportunities. Download the slides.
Our presenter was:
Corrine Walijarvi, MS, MBA, LMSW
Corrine is a Clinical Researcher, Bo’s Place. PhD student, University of Houston, Graduate College of Social Work, Doctoral Associate, University of Houston
Valuable Resource for Research: NAGSS
Bo’s Place created the National Arichive of Grief Support Studies (NAGSS). This is a great centralized place to read summaries of scholarly articles related to grief and bereavement. Visit NAGSS on the Bo's Place website (BosPlace.org) to learn more.
The article summaries in NAGSS are extremely valuable and will save you time when looking for research.
Topics Covered: Diverse Models Applied to Grief
- Psychodynamic: search for pathology
- Existential: search for meaning
- Cognitive behavioral: search for functioning
- Systems: search for relationships
- Constructionist: create on-going story
Corrine told us that as part of NAGSS, they would look into these models more in the future.
Prolonged Grief Disorder is Controversial
The PGD-13 (Prigerson, Horowitz, Jacobs, et al., 2009) outlines some of the characteristics that would make the disorder applicable:
- More than 6 months
- Significant impairment in functioning
- Daily experience of yearning
- Daily experience of intense feelings of pain, grief, sorrow
- At least 5 of 9 additional cognitive, emotional, and behavioral elements
On our call, there were many people who considered six months to be unreasonable.
Comments About Grief Research that is Child Specific
Participants commented how most research is adult specific (and also primarily adult women), and Corrine addressed the challenges faced by researchers when working with children. There are research projects underway, and for programs interested in having more research on children, they could consider telling their families about the Sesame Street research project. Learn more.
View other NAGC presentations.
Collaboration
We would like to hear from our members who are working on research. If you are working on research and would like to connect directly with Corrine, email her.
The NAGC has an Education and Research Committee, and we would be interested in collecting the following information:
- What kind of research are you conducting?
- What kind of questions do you ask in your intake forms when a family or child joins your program? Send us a copy, please.
- Are you doing any analysis of the data you collect?
Or share your comments here.
Comments