The International Trauma Consortium
Advancing research in global psychotraumatology
Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD)
A new disorder in ICD-11
PGD is included in the ICD-11 as a unique disorder under the parent category of 'disorders specifically associated with stress' (diagnostic code 6B42). It is described as follows:​
Prolonged grief disorder is a disturbance in which, following the death of a partner, parent, child, or other person close to the bereaved, there is persistent and pervasive grief response characterised by longing for the deceased or persistent preoccupation with the deceased accompanied by intense emotional pain (e.g. sadness, guilt, anger, denial, blame, difficulty accepting the death, feeling one has lost a part of one’s self, an inability to experience positive mood, emotional numbness, difficulty in engaging with social or other activities). The grief response has persisted for an atypically long period of time following the loss (more than 6 months at a minimum) and clearly exceeds expected social, cultural or religious norms for the individual’s culture and context. Grief reactions that have persisted for longer periods that are within a normative period of grieving given the person’s cultural and religious context are viewed as normal bereavement responses and are not assigned a diagnosis. The disturbance causes significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.
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Different measures exist to assess ICD-11 PGD including the International Grief Questionnaire and the International Prolonged Grief Disorder Scale. Researchers and clinicians may wish to select either of these scales that best suits their needs.
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