Patterns and relationships of prolonged grief, post-traumatic stress, and depressive symptoms in Chinese shidu parents: Latent profile and network analyses

Parents who experience the trauma of losing an only child are called "shidu" parents in China. There are individual differences in post-loss outcomes.1,061 Chinese shidu parents were asked to complete questionnaires assessing prolonged grief, post-traumatic stress, and depressive symptoms. The mean age of the sample was 59.68 (SD = 7.52), with the average time since the loss was 9.46 years (SD = 7.05). Most participants were female (62.3%). The main cause of the loss was an unnatural case (52.7%). Latent profile analysis was used to identify similar symptom patterns. Network analysis was used to explore the relationships among symptoms within different subgroups. A two-profile model based on symptom severity identified a "low symptom severity" subgroup (n = 419) and a "high symptom severity" subgroup (n = 642). In the low symptom severity subgroup network, the most central symptoms were loss of interest, feeling numb, and meaninglessness. In the high symptom severity subgroup network, the most central symptoms were physiological cue reactivity, emotional pain, and feeling easily startled. Individual differences in the post-loss outcomes of Chinese shidu parents are reflected not only in symptom patterns but also in the relationships among symptoms.