Growing in Suffering: The Curvilinear Relationship Between Prolonged Grief and Post-traumatic Growth of Recently Bereaved Individual During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Wenli Qian; Renzhihui Tang; Keyuan Jiao; Xin Xu; Xinyan Zou; Jianping Wang

doi:10.1177/00302228221141937

Growing in Suffering: The Curvilinear Relationship Between Prolonged Grief and Post-traumatic Growth of Recently Bereaved Individual During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Omega (Westport). 2022 Nov 24:302228221141937. doi: 10.1177/00302228221141937. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Wenli Qian¹, Renzhihui Tang¹, Keyuan Jiao², Xin Xu¹, Xinyan Zou¹, Jianping Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, China.
² Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.

Abstract

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic brought new challenges to mourning and growth of bereaved. The purpose is to explore the relationship between the prolonged grief (PG) symptoms and the post-traumatic growth (PTG) of recently bereaved people during the COVID-19 period, and the mediating role of meaning making. 305 participants were recruited to complete the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, Inventory of Complicated Grief, and Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses and Medcurve in SPSS were adapted to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that there was a curvilinear relationship between PG and PTG and meaning making had a completely mediating effect on this relationship. Different intervention goals - whether alleviating distress or cultivating growth - should be set up according to the level of grief for recently bereaved individuals during COVID-19. More attention should be paid to the role of meaning making in the future clinical practice.

Keywords: COVID-19; Prolonged grief; bereaved; meaning making; posttraumatic growth.