There exists a general consensus that
prolonged grief disorder (
PGD), or some variant of
PGD, represents a distinct
mental disorder worthy of diagnosis and treatment. Nevertheless,
confusion remains over whether different names and proposed symptom criteria for this disorder identify the same or different diagnostic entities. This study aimed to determine whether
PGD, complicated grief (CG), and
persistent complex bereavement disorder (PCBD) as described by the DSM-5 are substantively or merely semantically different diagnostic entities. Data were derived from the Yale Bereavement Study, a longitudinal community-based study of bereaved individuals funded by the US National Institute of Mental Health, designed explicitly to evaluate diagnostic criteria for disordered grief. The results suggested that the difference between
PGD and PCBD is only semantic. The level of agreement between the original
PGD test, a new version of the
PGD test proposed for ICD-11 and the PCBD test was high (pairwise kappa coefficients = 0.80-0.84). Their estimates of rate of disorder in this community sample were similarly low (∼10%). Their levels of diagnostic specificity were comparably high (95.0-98.3%). Their predictive validity was comparable. In contrast, the test for CG had only moderate agreement with those for
PGD and PCBD; its estimate of rate of disorder was three-fold higher (∼30%); its diagnostic specificity was poorer, and it had no predictive validity. We conclude that
PGD, PCBD and proposed ICD-11, but not CG, symptom-diagnostic tests identify a single diagnostic entity. Ultimately, brief symptom-diagnostic tests, such as the one proposed here for ICD-11, may have the greatest clinical utility.