The IADC Grief Questionnaire as a Brief Measure for Complicated Grief in Clinical Practice and Research: A Preliminary Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for this opportunity to review this important paper with implications for clinical psychotherapy practice approaches to grief, complicated grief and research in this field.  Your methods and analysis are clearly presented.  In your conclusion you clearly articulate the limitations and goals of future research for this measure to be used in practice and research.  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely appreciate your time and effort in reviewing our paper on IADC Grief Questionnaire and its implications for clinical psychotherapy practice. Your feedback is invaluable to us.

We are delighted to hear that you found our methods and analysis to be clearly presented. Your acknowledgment of our efforts in articulating the limitations and outlining future research goals in the conclusion is particularly encouraging. We recognize the importance of transparency in these aspects and are grateful for your positive evaluation.

Thank you once again for your review and valuable feedback.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This reviewer would like to believe there is something of value in this study, but its present version leaves that value very obscure.
 
The structure jumps from Grief (confusing CG with PGD), to continuing bonds, to induced ADCs (confused with spontaneous ADCs and mediated ADCs), to assessment scales—and back.  Each of these terms needs accurate current definitions, which should be consistently maintained throughout the discussion.

If this research is about the value of IADC in treating CG or PGD, it should focus its literature review on the development of and remaining defects within previous IADC research, and then show how their research advances IADC.  Spontaneous ADCs were discussed by Yamamoto et al. (1969), Rees (1971), surveyed by Kalish et al (1973) and made famous by Moody (1993).  Readers may want to know what is new or important about Italian IADC research in 2022-4 (30 to 50 years later).  But if the purpose of this research is primarily to encourage Italian IADC practitioners to assess their clients using IADC-GQ (?), it has a miniscule readership.

If this research is about the superior insights granted by a new assessment scale, it should focus its literature review on the development of and remaining defects within current assessment scales, and then show how their research demonstrates their new scale to be superior.  Is it recommending that the IADC-GQ should replace the current standards like the ICG-13-Revised  and The Traumatic Grief Inventory-Self Report Plus (TGI-SR+) ?  If so, it needs much stronger argument.  

In fact, Prigerson’s original 1993-1995 ICG already included ADC questions which were later removed.  Comparing a new IADC-GQ with that old and now discarded ICG is an exercise in irrelevancy.  Any new scales should be compared with the current standards like ICG-13-Revised and Traumatic Grief Inventory-Self Report Plus (TGI-SR+), emphasizing not only that they provide similar accuracy, but also grant important new insights.

The statistical games and charts here look like homework exercises.  They appear mathematically accurate, but their contribution to new psychological knowledge is unclear.  Those which give important new insights should be retained with clear explanations of their impact, while those which barely advance present knowledge or show no new utility should be discarded from this publication.

The researchers have collected data and conducted statistical analyses.  The readers would like to know the value and meaning of this data and analysis for future psychological assessment and treatment of grieving mourners.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The non-native English is confusing and ungrammatical.  Singular nouns should be associated with singular possessives and verbs; plural nouns should be associated with plural possessives and verbs.  Most generalizations should refer to plural clients or bereaved, unless they are pinpointing one individual case.  Verbs and prepositions are misused, m-dashes (—) are mistaken for hyphens (-),  terms appear suddenly with no definition (IADC-CG ?)  Important definitions are missing:  “The purpose was to assess the reliability of the IADC-GQ in an Italian sample.”  How is this reliability defined?  Internal? External?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments on the article “The IADC Grief Questionnaire as a brief measure for complicated grief in clinical practice and research: A preliminary study” submitted to Psych

 

 

Thank you for inviting me to review this really interesting manuscript. The contribution of this study is not only to confirm the reliability of the IADC Grief Questionnaire (IADC-GQ) in an Italian sample, but also to reveal how after death communication experiences are related to complicated grief symptoms.

 

Below you will find my comments and tips on how to improve the manuscript.

 

1.     The title and abstract cover the main aspect of the work. They include adequate names of the examined variables. The abstract briefly and accurately describes the results of the study. However, I would rather omit the subsection titles (Background, Methods, etc.).

2.     The introduction is written clearly, logically and with flair. This section provides definitions and results of previous research related to Complicated Grief (CG) and After Death Communication (ADC). Also, the introduction succinctly and accurately justifies the Authors’ need to explore the psychometric properties of the IADC Grief Questionnaire.

3.     Theoretical framework of the study, the Continuing Bonds Theory, is highly appropriate.

4.     The study aim is clearly formulated.

5.     The method used in the study, including sample, instruments and analytic strategy have been highly adequate.

6.     The results are presented correctly, reliably and thoroughly.

7.     Tables and figures are clear, legible and free from unnecessary modification, with the exception of table 4 which contains a mistake in the first line.

8.     The discussion section is written with great care, but I'm in need of more comprehensive interpretation of the results in light of the Continuing Bonds Theory. Also, I miss more practical implications.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have clarified a number of issues, so their present text is greatly improved, almost ready for publication.

One confusion remains about the sources for

"Yamamoto et al. (1969) and Rees (1971), surveyed by Kalish et al. (1973), and made famous by Moody in 1993"

--these four references do not appear in the footnotes (?)

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Some minor confusions remain.

Table 1 lists primary, secondary, and Master's level education--skipping the college (baccalaureate) level?  Did everyone who had more than a secondary education achieve not only a bachelor's but also a Master's degree (highly unusual)?  Or is this wording slightly mistaken?

Table 3. Descriptive statistics related to THE grief. (Should delete THE)

Author Response

Thank you for your constructive feedback. We appreciate your positive comments and have addressed the raised concerns. Specifically:

• We revised the text to enhance clarity, and we are pleased to hear that the manuscript is nearing readiness for publication.
• We acknowledged the oversight regarding the missing references (Yamamoto et al., 1969; Rees, 1971; Kalish et al., 1973; Moody, 1993) in the footnotes. We rectified this discrepancy in the revised version by ensuring proper citation.
• We appreciated your keen eye for linguistic details. In Table 1, the wording regarding education levels was refined to accurately reflect the participants' educational background. Additionally, the redundant article "THE" was removed from Table 3.

We were committed to making the necessary adjustments to ensure the highest quality of the manuscript.

Your feedback was invaluable, and we thank you for your time and thorough review.

Best regards,

Fabio D’Antoni and Claudio Lalla