Treating Complicated Grief among Orphaned Children in Kenya: Effectiveness of Complicated Grief Therapy

Maureen O Ngesa,Sylvia Tuikong,Kennedy Ongaro

doi:10.4236/jss.2020.84034

Abstract

Complicated Grief (CG) also referred to as complicated bereavement is a clinically significant condition even though there is limited evidence on its prevalence and treatment in Kenya and Africa in general. The main aim of this 2019 study was to test the efficacy of a modified Complicated Grief Therapy (CGT) in treating complicated grief (CG) among orphaned children. A total of 426 orphaned children aged 10 - 15 years were screened using the Brief Grief Questionnaire to sample those with elevated grief scores. Of the 263 who met the criteria, only 241 participants fully participated in the six months study with 123 and 118 participants in the treatment and the control groups respectively. The treatment group was subjected to a shortened version of the CGT (12 weeks) while no treatment was offered to the control group. The prevalence of grief among orphaned children was 66% and using the Inventory for Complicated Grief, to determine the clinical levels, a mean grief score of 31.6 (SD = 9.52) was recorded. The reduced version of CGT was effective in the reduction of complicated grief symptoms t(122) = -15.79, p at a weekly reduction of 1.29 points. In the case of the control group, the paired sample test showed a statistically insignificant reduction of CG score, t(117) = -0.712, p = 0.478. Conclusions: Reducing CGT sessions 12 sessions to make it shorter and less stringent and using it as group therapy in a school setup did not interfere with its effect on the treatment of complicated grief among orphaned children.

Highlights

Death of a parent is considered the most devastating event for a child
The diverse environmental risk factors unique to such orphans are an impediment to treatment using western treatment manuals but can be a point of learning to design and modify treatment manuals that are targeted for orphaned children in developing countries such as Kenya. Such programs have been found to be sustainable in countries with few resources and minimal capacity for counselors (Tol, Kemproe, Susanty, Jordans, Macy, & De Jong, 2008). It was against this background that this study evaluated the effectiveness of a Modified Complicated Grief Therapy (MCGT) as a grief work program for schools
The results presented in this paper show that orphaned children are a high-risk population when it comes to the development of complicated grief

Summary

Introduction

Death of a parent is considered the most devastating event for a child. as adults negotiate their grief and move on with life, it is assumed that the bereaved child is not grieving and is not given much attention in the entire mourning process (Akerman & Statham, 2014; Huyah, 2017). To improve care provision for orphans in Kenya, the government has attempted to put in place some policies. One such program is the Cash Transfer Program for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) initiated in 2006 (State Department of Social Protection, 2011). The CT-OVC program has been geared mostly at ensuring that children are enrolled in school This program promotes kinship care with families (Handa et al, 2014).

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