• Charlotte Boven, Nele VAN DEN Noortgate, Let Dillen, Liesbeth VAN Humbeeck, Lieve VAN DEN Block, and Ruth Piers.
• Department of Geriatric Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000 Ghent, Belgium. Electronic address: charlotte.boven@uzgent.be.
• J Pain Symptom Manage. 2025 Feb 10.

ContextWhile most bereaved can navigate a death-related loss, some face persistent and disabling challenges, a condition known as Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD). Early identification of PGD can prevent adverse health outcomes. The effectiveness of healthcare providers' clinical intuition versus relatives' self-report surveys in estimating the risk of developing PGD remains uncertain.ObjectivesThe study evaluates the accuracy of healthcare providers' subjective risk estimates and self-reported surveys from relatives, conducted close to the cancer patient's death, in predicting ICD-11 PGD symptomatology seven months post-loss.MethodsThe study involved specialist palliative care healthcare providers and bereaved relatives of oncology patients in ten hospital and five home settings. Subjective risk estimates from healthcare providers (N=75) and relatives' self-report surveys (N=75) using the Pre-Loss Grief-12 (PG-12) were compared with Traumatic Grief Inventory-Self Report Plus (TGI-SR+) total scores seven months post-loss. Diagnostic efficacy was evaluated using the Receiver Operating Characteristic and Area Under Curve.ResultsIn the sample of 75 relatives, 8% had ICD-11 PGD symptomatology. The Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis of the PG-12 (N=75) yielded an Area Under Curve of 0.891, 95% CI [0.782 - 1], while the healthcare providers' subjective estimates (N=75) resulted in an Area Under Curve of 0.549, 95% CI [0.299 - 0.799]. The optimal Pre-Loss Grief-12 cut-off score for identifying relatives at risk for PGD was 30 with a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 64.7%.ConclusionThe Pre-Loss Grief-12 accurately predicted PGD symptomatology seven months post-loss, while clinical intuition did not perform better than chance. Future research should compare the predictive value of self-report data with clinical interviews.Copyright © 2025. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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