Predicting Grief Reactions One Year Following a Mass University Shooting: Evaluating Dose-Response and Contextual...

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Trauma Studies
• Grief Research

Background:

• Mass school shootings cause significant psychological distress.
• Understanding grief risk factors is crucial for intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• Identify risk factors for grief after mass school shootings.
• Examine direct and indirect pathways of exposure on grief.
• Investigate the role of peritraumatic threat perception.

Main Methods:

• Online questionnaires administered to 1,013 participants at 3-4 months and 1 year post-event.
• Statistical modeling to predict grief reactions.
• Controlled for initial grief, posttraumatic stress, and pre-trauma vulnerabilities.

Main Results:

• Closer social proximity to the shooting predicted higher grief at 1 year.
• Social proximity indirectly increased grief via perceived threat to others.
• Physical proximity and perceived threat to self did not predict grief.

Conclusions:

• Social proximity is a critical risk factor for sustained grief post-mass shooting.
• Perceived threat to others' safety mediates the link between social proximity and grief.
• Findings inform grief screening and theoretical models of trauma response.