Difficulties accepting the loss of a spouse: a precursor for intensified grieving among widowed older adults

Previous research has identified three distinct factors that make up the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief-Present (TRIG-Present) scale, which tap into grief related thoughts, emotional response, and nonacceptance regarding a loss. In the present study, the authors sought to identify which of these core grief experiences in the early aftermath of loss are predictive of subsequent intensified grieving. Information was collected from 169 conjugally bereaved older adults at 2- and 12-months following the loss of their spouse. Using a cross-lagged panel design, early experiences of nonacceptance were found to significantly predict more intense grief experiences later on; whereas grief-related thoughts and emotional response were not strongly related to grief at 12-months postloss, after accounting for synchronous (cross-sectional) and autoregressive (stability in the same factor over time) associations. These findings suggest that practitioners working with bereaved clients should pay close attention to early expressions of nonacceptance.