Measurement Invariance of the Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder Checklist With Respect to Youth Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Age.

The Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (PCBD) Checklist was constructed to facilitate the developmentally sensitive assessment of proposed PCBD criteria in bereaved children and adolescents 8-18 years of age. Initial analyses of the PCBD Checklist provided support for the hypothesized two-factor model. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the measurement invariance of the PCBD Checklist with respect to gender (boys and girls), race/ethnicity (White, Black, and Hispanic youth), and age (school age, preadolescent, and adolescent youth). Participants were 594 youth (50.4% female) aged 7-18 years (M = 11.91, SD = 2.80) who were evaluated as part of standard care at a community-based grief support center. Youth self-identified as Hispanic (n = 184, 30.8%), non-Hispanic white (n = 179, 30.0%), and African American/Black (n = 136, 22.8%). A series of stepwise, multigroup confirmatory factor analyses provided evidence in support of the PCBD Checklist's measurement invariance for all three groups concerning configural invariance, metric invariance, and scalar invariance. These results suggest that PCBD Checklist Criterion B and C scores are measuring similar latent variables, to a similar degree, across gender, race/ethnicity, and age. Establishing the cross-group equivalence of the PCBD Checklist is an important endorsement of its generalizability and clinical utility in that it can be administered to diverse populations with confidence that it is measuring proposed PCBC diagnostic criteria similarly across subgroups.

Validation of the Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (PCBD) Checklist: A Developmentally Informed Assessment Tool for Bereaved Youth.

The inclusion of Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (PCBD) in the DSM-5 appendix signifies a call for research regarding the distinguishing features and clinical utility of proposed PCBD criteria. Rigorously constructed tools for assessing PCBD are lacking, especially for youth. This study evaluated the validity and clinical utility of the PCBD Checklist, a 39-item measure designed to assess PCBD criteria in youth aged 8 to18 years. Test construction procedures involved: (a) reviewing the literature regarding developmental manifestations of proposed criteria, (b) creating a developmentally informed item pool, (c) surveying an expert panel to evaluate the clarity and developmental appropriateness of candidate items, (d) conducting focus groups to evaluate the comprehensibility and acceptability of items, and (e) evaluating psychometric properties in 367 bereaved youth (Mage = 13.49, 55.0% female). The panel, clinicians, and youth provided favorable content validity and comprehensibility ratings for candidate items. As hypothesized, youth who met full PCBD criteria, Criterion B (e.g., preoccupation with the deceased and/or circumstances of the death), or Criterion C (e.g., reactive distress and/or social/identity disruption) reported higher posttraumatic stress and depressive symptoms than youth who did not meet these criteria, ηp2 = .07-.16. Youth who met Criterion C reported greater functional impairment than youth who did not, ηp2 = .08-.12. Youth who qualified for the "traumatic bereavement specifier" reported more frequent posttraumatic stress symptoms than youth who did not, ηp2 = .04. Findings support the convergent, discriminant, and discriminant-groups validity, developmental appropriateness, and clinical utility of the PCBD Checklist.