cohort at 1, 7, and 13 months post-loss, stratified by gender. Adaptive grief reactions were assessed using the Inventory of Daily Widowed Life, symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (PGD) with the Prolonged Grief Disorder Checklist, and pregnancy loss-specific reactions with the Perinatal Grief Scale. Parents showed high initial grief, followed by a significant decline in grief scores across the three time-points. Heterogeneity was observed, with a subgroup displaying elevated grief. Women reported higher scores than men; however, among parents in the upper quartile of grief scores, women's scores declined between 7 and 13 months, whereas men's remained stable. Single-Items showed emotional pain, longing, and guilt/self-blame in a considerable proportion of parents at 13 months post-loss.
Eklund et al. (Sun,) studied this question.