Studies // Cited work
Psychological interventions for grief in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
Johannsen, M., Damholdt, M. F., Zachariae, R., Lundorff, M., Farver-Vestergaard, I., & O'Connor, M. (2019). Psychological interventions for grief in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Level A Meta-analysis doi:10.1016/j.jad.2019.04.065
What this study supports
Supports the claim that psychological interventions reduced grief symptoms (g = 0.41 post-intervention, 0.31 after adjustment for publication bias, 0.45 at follow-up), with larger effects in people at least six months post-loss and with high baseline symptoms. Heterogeneous trials of varying quality.
- Who was studied
- 31 randomized controlled trials of psychological interventions for grief in bereaved adults.
- Design
- Meta-analysis
- Level of evidence
- Syntheses of controlled studies: meta-analyses and systematic reviews of experiments and trials.
Claims that rest on it
Each claim states what the site asserts, at what strength, and with what caveat.
Psychological interventions for grief show small average benefits, with little lasting benefit for unselected bereaved people and larger effects in trials that enrolled people with marked or high grief symptoms and in trials of people at least six months after the loss, which are separate study-level moderators.
- Scope
- Controlled and randomised trials of psychological interventions for bereaved adults.
- Caveat
- Trials were heterogeneous and of varying quality, with signs of publication bias; moderator findings compare studies rather than testing conditions directly.
Last reviewed · Review due · grief-interventions-work-best-when-targeted