The Grief Networks of Traumatic and Nontraumatic Deaths: Comparing Earthquake- and Illness-Related Losses

Abstract

Traumatic death is a risk factor for prolonged grief. Network analysis offers a perspective for understanding traumatic bereavement at a symptom interaction level. This study estimates regularized partial correlation grief networks for bereavement due to earthquake (n = 818) and illness (n = 237), using symptoms from the Inventory of Complicated Grief (ICG) as the nodes. Difficulty in accepting death and loneliness were highly central nodes in both networks. Trust difficulties and longing for the deceased exhibited high centrality in the earthquake-bereaved sample but not in the illness-bereaved sample. The earthquake bereavement network was characterized by high connectivity and a diversity of central symptoms. These results provide insights into understanding the severity of grief after a traumatic loss. Although promoting the integration of the reality of loss and alleviating loneliness is important, it might also be worth considering the role of post-loss interpersonal trust and the distress associated with longing for the deceased for traumatic bereavement.