Distinguishing Symptoms of Grief and Depression in a Cohort of Advanced Cancer Patients

Several studies have shown that the symptoms of grief are different from symptoms of depression among bereaved family members. This study is an attempt to replicate this finding among advanced cancer patients and examine clinical correlates of patient grief and depression. Analyses were conducted on data from interviews with 123 advanced cancer patients. Grief was measured using symptoms from the patient version of the Inventory of Complicated Grief-Revised (ICG-R) and symptoms of depression were assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). A factor analysis revealed that symptoms of patient grief formed a coherent factor that was distinct from a depression factor. Patient grief "caseness" (defined as being in the top 10% of the distribution of grief scores), but not major depressive disorder, was uniquely associated with the wish to die (odds ratio OR 10.13 0.1.08-95.06). Both depression and grief were significantly associated with mental health service use (OR 16.07 1.68, 153.77 vs. 4.82; CI = 1.09, 21.41) and negative religious coping (OR 1.36 1.06, 1.73 vs. 1.25 1.05, 1.49); neither was associated with terminal illness acknowledgement.