I read one article titled The Loss Response List (LRL): A tool for measuring adolescent grief response by S. R. Wheeler and J. Austin and another article titled Grief and School Communities: The Impact of Social Context, A Comparison Between Australia and England, by L. Rowling and J. Holland, respectively. .
The first article was a detailed report of a study that measured physical, emotional, social and cognitive responses to loss in a sample of adolescents who had experienced a pregnancy loss (Wheeler and Austin 26.) The questionnaire used was called the Loss Response List (LRL). There were 4 kinds of grief responses that were measured. .
Physical responses ranged from eating troubles to nightmares while sleeping at night. Emotional responses ranged from being dazed, confused, depressed and feeling alone. Social responses included feeling different from peers. Cognitive responses included a decline in school performance (Wheeler and Austin 27.) .
The average age of adolescents that participated in this study was 16.5 years old. There were two groups. There was one group that had experienced a pregnancy loss, and another control group, that had suffered any loss other than a pregnancy loss. The variable that was measured was depression.
The criteria that were used to choose the people that would participate in the study were as follows; Teens who had never been pregnant; Teens who were pregnant; Teens who had suffered a pregnancy loss within the past year; and, Teens who had suffered a pregnancy loss within the past two years and were pregnant again. .
The results were not at all surprising. The group of teens that had suffered the loss of a pregnancy scored an average higher than 12, on the scale that measured clinical depression. The group that hadn't suffered a loss or had suffered a different kind of loss other than pregnancy loss (control group), scored lower than 12. .
I think that this study was a success and produced the results that I had predicted that it would produce.
