[The TRIG (Texas Revised Inventory of Grief) questionnaire. French translation and validation]

Bereavement and mourning are normal reactions to the loss of a loved one, characterized by specific ideas, affects, and behavior, evolving spontaneously towards resolution. This syndrome, classified as a non mental disorder (DSM IV), resembles depression. Up to now, there was no instrument for an objective assessment. The general objective of this work was to present the french version of the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief, or TRIG (Faschingbauer, De Vaul & Zisook, 1981), designed to evaluate the intensity of the reaction to the loss of a loved one. Our population is composed of 154 adults of the general population (74 females and 80 males) of the age of 25 to 35 years. A principal component analysis gave us a general factor of grief (28% VT) which gathers emotional reaction to the bereavement. The factorial analysis with Varimax Rotations confirmed the existence of two specific types of grief. These are "past behavior" (reaction at the time of loss) factor (37% VT), "present feelings" (at the time of assessment by TRIG) factor (31% VT). Furthermore, another factor of "related facts" (32% VT) appeared to be in relation with the aptitude of coping. These results allowed us to construct a valid questionnaire of 25 items measuring 3 types of bereavement reactions.