The Grieving Heart: The Association Between Hemodynamic Responses to Grief Recall and Prolonged Grief Disorder...

The death of a loved one is among the most stressful life events. Across cultures, grief is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. In addition to psychological distress, grieving includes physical components, such as elevated blood pressure (BP). This study investigated hemodynamic responses to a grief-related interview and the impact of grief severity on cardiovascular reactivity in bereaved individuals 6 to 24 months post-loss.

Sixty-seven participants (85% females, aged 60 ± 6 years) underwent BP measurements during baseline, after a 5 to 10-minute grief recall task (GR), and during a 10-minute recovery period. Repeated measures ANOVAs compared systolic (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) at baseline and 0, 5, and 10 minutes post-GR. ANOVAs were controlled for age, sex, time since loss, and antihypertensive medication. Pairwise comparisons between time points were calculated. Participants meeting prolonged grief disorder (PGD) criteria ( n = 6) were descriptively compared with individuals reporting grief severity below the median ( n = 32) of the Prolonged Grief-13 questionnaire and to those above the median without PGD ( n = 29).

SBP and DBP increased post-GR and remained elevated during the 10-minute recovery [SBP: F(3, 186) = 3.950, p = .009, η 2 p = 0.060; DBP: F(3, 186) = 1.923, p = .13, η 2 p = 0.030]. Pairwise comparisons revealed significant differences between SBP and DBP at baseline compared with post-GR measurements. Descriptively, the PGD subgroup showed higher baseline values, similarly pronounced reactivity compared with the rest of the sample (contrary to previous findings), and a delayed decline in SBP and DBP, particularly compared with participants with low grief severity.

Findings support the hypothesis that higher PGD symptoms may be linked to a dysregulated hemodynamic stress response. Furthermore, results suggest that the GR is a feasible, transcultural task for eliciting grief-related hemodynamic responses in bereaved individuals up to 2 years post-loss.