Psycho-oncology
-
Grief 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. ⋯ PGD 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.