The assessment of grief among Hong Kong Chinese: A preliminary report

Abstract

This is a preliminary report of a study that examined the clinical usefulness of the Chinese Grief Reaction Assessment Form (GRAF). The validity, reliability, and factor structure of the form were also explored. We administered the GRAF to 180 bereaved individuals during intake interview for bereavement counseling. The GRAF has obtained good internal Cronbach's α reliability of .89 and showed its validity in being able to discriminate between the grief reactions of bereaved individuals experiencing anticipated and unanticipated death in the predicted direction. Bereaved women had stronger grief reaction than men. The item "I do not want to abandon him/her" obtained the highest mean ranked scores among both bereaved men and bereaved women. Our findings support the use of the GRAF as a clinical tool to assess psychological symptoms associated with bereavement among Hong Kong Chinese, which also holds promise for research and program evaluation.