• Maria Giulia Nanni, Bruno Biancosino, and Luigi Grassi.
• Section of Psychiatry, Department of Biomedical and Specialty Surgical Sciences, University of Ferrara, Corso Giovecca 203, 44121 Ferrara, Italy. Electronic address: mariagiulia.nanni@unife.it.
• J Affect Disord. 2014 May 1;160:87-91.

PurposeA number of studies have underlined a 10-20% prevalence of complicated grief (CG) among caregivers of cancer patients. The study aimed at examining the relationship between pre-loss criteria for CG and post-loss diagnosis of CG and at evaluating the validity and factor structure of a predictive tool, the Inventory of Complicated Grief (ICG), in order to identify the risk of developing CG in a sample of Italian caregivers.MethodsSixty family members of terminally ill patients admitted to hospice and receiving a Palliative Prognostic Score (PaP) predictive 30 day survival time <30% completed the Pre-Death ICG (ICG-PL) (T0). Family members were met again 6 months after the death of their loved one (T1) and submitted to the interview for Complicated Grief (Post-loss interview-PLI).ResultsCaseness for CG was shown in 18.3% of caregivers at T1. ICG-PL score (T0) were higher among those who developed CG at T1 than non-cases. A cut off score ≥49 on the ICG-PL (AUC=0.98) maximized sensitivity (92%) and specificity (98%) on caseness at T1. Pre-loss criteria related to traumatic distress, separation distress and emotional symptoms in general were significantly related to a post-loss diagnosis of CG, while no effect was shown on duration of pre-loss distress.ConclusionsThe use of short screening tools, like the ICG-PL, may help health care professionals to identify subjects at risk for CG.Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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