Effectiveness of grief therapy: A meta-analysis.

Abstract

This meta-analysis addressed the question of how effective grief therapy is and for whom, using B. J. Becker's (1988) techniques for analyzing standardized mean-change scores. Analyses were based on 35 studies (N = 2,284), with a weighted mean effect size (ES) of Δ + = 0.43 (95% confidence interval = 0.33 to 0.52). Clients in no-treatment control groups showed little improvement (d + = 0.06), possibly because of the relatively long delay between loss and treatment in most studies (mean delay = 27 months). Moderators of treatment efficacy included time since loss and relationship to the deceased. Client selection procedures, a methodological factor not originally coded in this meta-analysis, appeared to contribute strongly to variability in ESs: A small number of studies involving self-selected clients produced relatively large ESs, whereas the majority of studies involving clients recruited by the investigators produced ESs in the small to moderate range.