Assessment Tools for Children who Experience Traumatic Loss: A Systematic Review.

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Bereavement Studies
• Mental Health Assessment

Background:

• Children facing traumatic loss are vulnerable to prolonged grief and mental health issues.
• Diverse conceptualizations of maladaptive grief have led to varied assessment tools, lacking a gold standard for pediatric populations.
• Standardized measurement of grief in children experiencing traumatic loss is crucial for accurate diagnosis and intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and identify grief assessment measures used in studies involving children who have experienced traumatic loss.
• To determine the current landscape of grief measurement tools in pediatric traumatic bereavement research.
• To highlight the need for greater standardization in assessing child grief.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search conducted in PubMed, PsycINFO, and OVID, supplemented by reference list hand searches.
• Studies were included if peer-reviewed, measured grief, and involved children (≤18 years) experiencing traumatic loss.
• Data extraction was performed by two independent reviewers.

Main Results:

• Thirty-nine studies met the inclusion criteria, identifying 17 distinct grief assessment measures.
• The Inventory of Complicated Grief (used in 10 studies) and the Extended Grief Inventory (used in 6 studies) were the most common measures.
• Significant variation exists in measures used, with most relying solely on child self-report.

Conclusions:

• The current literature lacks standardized methods for assessing grief in children who have experienced traumatic loss.
• There is a critical need for more consistent and validated measurement tools, including parent and teacher-reported measures.
• Future research should focus on developing and implementing standardized assessment protocols to improve the reliability and comparability of findings in pediatric bereavement.