An initial assessment of the psychometric properties of the Complicated Grief Questionnaire for People with Intellectual Disabilities (CGQ-ID)

Given the research evidence that people with intellectual disability (ID) do grieve following bereavement, the present study aimed to describe and gather preliminary psychometric data for a version of the Inventory of Complicated Grief [Prigerson, H. G., Maciejewski, P. K., Reynolds, C. F., Bierhals, A. J., Newsom, J. T., Fasiczka, A., et al. (1995). Inventory of Complicated Grief: A scale to measure maladaptive symptoms of loss. Psychiatry Research, 59, 65–79] adapted for use with this population. Carers completed the Complicated Grief Questionnaire for People with ID (CGQ-ID) for 76 individuals with ID, half of whom had experienced a parental bereavement within the last 2 years. The final scale and subscales (Separation Distress and Traumatic Grief) showed very good internal and inter-rater reliability and distinguished between the two groups. While the findings suggest that the CGQ-ID is suitable for identifying complicated grief-type symptoms among adults with ID, further research must be conducted to ascertain whether the findings can be replicated.