Keywords:

Grief, Death

Background:

The following inventory can be used to assess grief associated with death of a loved one (Faschingbauer et al., 1987).

Developer(s):

Thomas R. Faschingbauer, Richard A. DeVaul, and Sidney Zisook

Copyright:

Publisher: American Psychiatric Press

Subscales:

Past Life Disruption: Section 1, first 8 items
Present Emotion of Grief: Section 2, next 13 items

Reliability:

Internal consistency:
Past life disruption: Cronbach alpha = 0.77, Split half reliability = 0.74
Present emotion: 0.86, Split half reliability = 0.88
(Faschingbauer et al., 1987)

Assessment:

Think back to the time this person died and answer all of these items about your feelings and actions at that time by indicating whether each item is Completely True, Mostly True, Both True and False, Mostly False, or Completely False as it applied to you after this person died. Check the best answer.

1. After this person died I found it hard to get along with certain people.
2. I found it hard to work well after this person died.
3. After this person's death I lost interest in my family, friends, and outside activities.
4. I felt a need to do things that the deceased had wanted to do.
5. I was unusually irritable after this person died.
6. I couldn't keep up with my normal activities for the first 3 months after this person died .
7. I was angry that the person who died left me.
8. I found it hard to sleep after this person died.

Now answer all of the following items by checking how you presently feel about this person's death. Do not look back at Part I.

1. I still cry when I think of the person who died.
2. I still get upset when I think about the person who died.
3. I cannot accept this person's death.
4. Sometimes I very much miss the person who died.
5. Even now it's painful to recall memories of the person who died.
6. I am preoccupied with thoughts (often think) about the person who died.
7. I hide my tears when I think about the person who died.
8. No one will ever take the place in my life of the person who died
9. I can't avoid thinking about the person who died
10. I feel it's unfair that this person died.
11. Things and people around me still remind me of the person who died.
12. I am unable to accept the death of the person who died.
13. At times I still feel the need to cry for the person who died.

USE THE FOLLOWING RESPONSE CATEGORIES FOR SCALES ABOVE.

1. Completely true
2. Mostly true
3. Neutral
4. Mostly false
5. Completely false

References:

• Faschingbauer, T., Zisook, S., and DeVaul, R. (1987). The Texas revised inventory of grief. In S. Zisook, (Ed.), Biopsychosocial Aspects of Bereavement (pp. 111-124). American Psychiatric Press, Inc: Washington, D.C.
• Faschingbauer, T.R., DeVaul, R.A., Zisook, S. (1977) Development of the Texas inventory of grief. American Journal of Psychiatry. 134(6), 696-698.

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