• Fur-Hsing Wen, Wen-Chi Chou, Wen-Chi Shen, and Siew Tzuh Tang.
• Department of International Business, Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan.
• Psychooncology. 2020 Oct 1; 29 (10): 1524-1532.

ObjectiveGrief reactions in bereaved caregivers of cancer patients have been identified individually as distinct prolonged grief disorder (PGD)-and major depressive disorder (MDD)-symptom trajectories, but no research has examined whether the patterns of change (trajectories) for PGD and MDD symptoms synchronize during bereavement. We conducted a secondary analysis study to investigate the construct distinctiveness of PGD and MDD by simultaneously identifying and examining similarities and differences between bereaved caregivers' PGD- and depressive-symptom trajectories from immediately post-loss through 2 years later.MethodsPGD and depressive symptoms were measured for 849 cancer patients' caregivers over their first 2 years of bereavement using 11 grief-symptom items of the prolonged grief-13 scale (PG-11) and the center for epidemiologic studies-depression (CES-D) scale, respectively. PGD- and depressive-symptom trajectories were identified using latent class growth analysis with continuous latent-class indicators (total PG-11 and CES-D scores). Concordance of caregiver participants' membership in PGD- and depressive-symptom trajectories was examined by a percentage and a kappa value.ResultsFive distinct symptom trajectories were identified for both PGD and MDD, with four shared trajectories (endurance, transient-reaction, resilience, and prolonged-symptomatic) having different prevalence rankings. Nonetheless, unique trajectories were identified for PGD (potential recurrence) and depressive symptoms (chronically distressed), respectively. Concordance between membership in PGD- and depressive-symptom trajectories was moderate (61.3%, kappa [95% CI]: 0.49 [0.44, 0.53]).ConclusionPGD and MDD are related but distinct constructs indicated by the unique trajectories identified for each, different prevalence rankings for PGD- and depressive-symptom trajectories, and moderate concordance between membership in PGD- and depressive-symptom trajectories, respectively.© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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