Dementia spousal caregivers and past transgressions: Measuring and understanding forgiveness experiences.

The transition from "wife" to "caregiver" for a cognitively impaired husband can be an overwhelming experience. Communication patterns change and small conflicts can grow, at times bringing angry feelings and new burdens. Engagement with forgiveness processes may benefit wives by lowering resentment over past tensions, restoring trust, and enhancing the overall caregiving experience.

Prolonged grief disorder: Psychometric validation of criteria proposed for DSM-V and ICD-11.

Background: Bereavement is a universal experience, and its association with excess morbidity and mortality is well established. Nevertheless, grief becomes a serious health concern for a relative few. For such individuals, intense grief persists, is distressing and disabling, and may meet criteria as a distinct mental disorder.

Posttraumatic growth in bereaved parents.

The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), Revised Grief Experience Inventory, and World Assumptions Scale were administered to 111 bereaved parents. The PTGI scores indicate that many bereaved parents report personal growth in domains outlined by L.G.

Caregiver grief in end-stage dementia:using the Marwit and Meuser Caregiver Grief Inventory for assessment and intervention in social work practice.

Caregivers of individuals with end-stage dementia experience increased grief reactions; however, their grief is too often over-looked by health professionals. Regardless of their practice setting, social workers must assess and intervene with caregivers dealing with grief. This article provides information on the Marwit and Meuser Caregiver Grief Inventory (MM-CGI) that was designed to measure the grief of caregivers of individuals with progressive memory loss.

Assessing pre-death grief in cancer caregivers using the Marwit-Meuser Caregiver Grief Inventory (MM-CGI).

The Marwit-Meuser Caregiver Grief Inventory (MM-CGI) was developed and initially validated with caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease, and subsequently evaluated with caregivers of persons with brain injury. The present study examined MM-CGI psychometric and validity properties in 75 caregivers of persons with cancer. As with previous studies, high internal consistency reliability of MM-CGI Total Grief and subscale scores (Personal Sacrifice and Burden, Heartfelt Sadness and Longing, and Worry and Felt Isolation) was demonstrated.

Measuring grief in caregivers of persons with acquired brain injury.

Primary Objective: To investigate the psychometric and validity properties and applicability of a modified version of the Marwit-Meuser Caregiver Grief Inventory (MM-CGI) for use with caregivers of patients with acquired brain injury (ABI).

Research Design: Replicate Marwit and Meuser's original psychometric study assessing grief in caregivers of dementia patients.

Methods And Procedures: The MM-CGI was administered to 28 ABI caregivers along with standardized measures of caregiver strain, depression, well-being and family support.

An investigation of the relationship of personality, coping, and grief intensity among bereaved mothers.

A mediational model of grief intensity (Meuser & Marwit, 2000) was examined in a population at risk for complicated grief. Coping strategies (emotion-oriented, task-oriented, and avoidance-oriented coping) were hypothesized to mediate the influence of personality factors (neuroticism and extraversion) on grief. Bereaved mothers (N = 138) completed the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations, and Revised Grief Experiences Inventory.

Psychological and religious coping strategies of mothers bereaved by the sudden death of a child.

The authors examined the associations of 3 types of psychological coping (task-based, emotion-based, avoidance), 2 types of religious coping (positive, negative), and their interactions with grief of 57 mothers bereaved by the sudden death of a child. Results indicated that mothers who use emotion-based coping report significantly higher levels of grief, whereas mothers who use avoidance coping report lower levels of grief. The interaction of task coping and positive religious coping was also associated with lower self-reported grief.

Development of a short form inventory to assess grief in caregivers of dementia patients.

This article describes the derivation of a short-form of the Marwit-Meuser Caregiver Grief Inventory (MM-CGI), an inventory designed to measure grief in caregivers of persons with progressive dementia. It presents initial reliability and validity data and describes ways to use the inventory both clinically and scientifically. The resulting MM-CGI Short Form, presented here in its entirety, is comprised of 18 items and, like its full-form relative, is self-scoring and yields a Total Grief score and sub-scale scores measuring factors representing Personal Sacrifice Burden, Heartfelt Sadness and Longing, and Worry and Felt Isolation.

Complicated grief and the trend toward cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Recently, considerable attention has been given to the cognitive processes entailed in mourning. There has been a growing understanding that the death of a loved one forces individuals to restructure and rebuild previously held assumptions about the self and the world. On the basis of this conceptualization of grief as a period of meaning reconstruction, cognitive-behavioral therapy seems a fitting intervention mechanism for treating individuals with complicated grief.

Development and initial validation of an inventory to assess grief in caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop an empirically based, psychometrically sound instrument for the assessment of grief in caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease.

Design And Methods: A total of 184 statements addressing personal grief reactions were obtained from 45 adult child and 42 spouse caregivers in 16 focus groups representing early, middle, late, and postdeath stages. These were presented to a second sample of 83 adult child and 83 spouse caregivers, who rated them according to their current experience.

Diagnosing complicated grief: a closer look.

Over the past decade, a number of researchers have proposed a separate DSM category for complicated grief. Recently, there have been attempts to determine empirically the number and nature of variables comprising the complicated-grief syndrome. The present research addresses one such procedure for defining these variables.

Disclosure preferences about terminal illness: an examination of decision-related factors.

Twenty-six male and 86 female, predominantly White, non-terminal cancer patients addressed preferences for disclosure of terminal prognosis, should their disease advance to that stage. Specific inquiries were made about desired levels of disclosure (full, partial,or non-disclosure) and desired pathways of disclosure (from physician to patient only, from physician to patient in the presence of a loved one, or from physician to loved one only). Gender, previous experience with death, and trait anxiety were associated with level preference.

A comprehensive, stage-sensitive model of grief in dementia caregiving.

Purpose: Grief is an overlooked but important element of the caregiver experience. This study defines a model of caregiver grief to aid in clinical intervention and to support further research.

Design And Methods: This study addressed the grief responses of 87 spouse and adult-child caregivers of patients with progressive dementia representing mild, moderate, severe, and postdeath.

Emotional support needs of gay males with AIDS.

Twenty-five gay and three bisexual males with AIDS (PWAs) rated their needs for four different kinds of emotional support (expressing love and concern, expressing encouragement and positive feedback, serving as a confidant, and providing a philosophical or spiritual perspective) from five different support providers (parents, partners, friends, HIV-positive friends and physicians). Findings support the importance of emotional support for this population. The results indicate that differences exist depending on type and provider of support.

Communicated support following loss: examining the experiences of parental death and parental divorce in adolescence.

Thirty adults who experienced parental death in adolescence (death survivors), 30 who experienced parental divorce in adolescence (divorce survivors), and 60 who experienced neither (30 potential support providers for each condition) rated the relative helpfulness of support-intended communications and the helpfulness of support network members. Few differences were found between death and divorce survivor groups and between survivor and potential provider groups. Nonsignificant results were discussed in terms of those elements of grief and grief support that transcend different loss situations.

Personality constructs and perceived presence of deceased loved ones.

For a study of personality constructs associated with the experience of perceiving the presence of deceased loved ones, 20 male and 67 female bereaved participants completed Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire, Rotter's Locus of Control Scale, and a questionnaire related to the personal sensing experience. As hypothesized, perceivers exhibited higher scores on neuroticism and externalized control; contrary to expectations, perceivers demonstrated more extraversive than introversive tendencies. Perceived presence was not mediated by the quality of support available to the perceiver, was not generally correlated with specific demographic factors, and was most often characterized as comforting.

Reliability of diagnosing complicated grief: a preliminary investigation.

Forty experienced mental health providers were asked to diagnose 4 case histories, each involving an aspect of difficult grief embedded in a larger psychopathology context. Half used the full Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev,; DSM-III-R; American Psychiatric Association, 1987); half used a forced choice from among anxiety, mood, adjustment, and personality disorders.

Depressive symptomatology, perceptions of attractiveness, and body image in children.

Fifty-seven children, aged 9-12 completed the Children's Depression Inventory, rated their bodies on dimensions of attractiveness, effectiveness and vulnerability, and rated themselves and three other children on global attractiveness. Dysphoria was significantly correlated with both measures of dissatisfaction of own attractiveness. No significant correlations occurred between CDI scores and effectiveness or vulnerability.

Hostility reduction in married and unacquainted couples.

Fifty-two persons (26 married couples) competed in a complex reaction time task and set durations of 100 db noise for either their respective spouses or an opposite sex stranger. Each S's punitive settings were countered by four presequenced counteraggression strategies. Wives were responsive to a broader range of aggression reduction strategies than were husbands.

Assessment of sex-role stereotyping among male and female psychologist practitioners.

Seventy-seven female and 86 male psychologist practitioners filled out the Bem Sex Rote Inventory to describe either a healthy adult male, healthy adult female, or healthy adult, sex unspecified. Analyzing the data according to Bem's classification of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny produced a significant Scale X Condition interaction with male and female practitioners ascribing significantly more masculine than feminine traits to healthy adult men, yet displaying no comparable differences when rating healthy adult women. Analyzing the data according to Spence's classification of masculine, feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated produced a Group X Condition interaction with practitioners ascribing significantly more masculine traits to healthy adult men and significantly more feminine traits to healthy adult women.

Influence of instructions on expectancy effects in Rorschach testing.

Videotaped Rorschach instructions from a previous study in which two experimenters had biased subjects for high productivity and two experimenters had biased subjects for low productivity were played (audio or combined audio-visual channels) to matched subjects who then took the free association portion of the test. Biased results were obtained for one experimenter only. These did not interact with communication channels.