BACKGROUND: Bereaved parents may be at higher risk to develop persistent, severe and disabling grief, termed prolonged grief. Grief rumination, repetitive thinking about the causes and consequences of the loss, is a malleable cognitive process that maintains prolonged grief. Grief rumination can be measured with the Utrecht Grief Rumination Scale (UGRS). The present study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the new Swedish version of the UGRS in a sample of bereaved parents.

METHODS: A Swedish nationwide postal survey including measures of demographic and loss-related variables, grief rumination (UGRS), and symptoms of prolonged grief, posttraumatic stress, anxiety, depression, and insomnia, was completed by 226 parents (133 mothers and 93 fathers) who lost a child to cancer in the past five years. Psychometric properties of the UGRS were examined through confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), reliability analyses, and assessment of UGRS score associations with symptoms of prolonged grief, posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and insomnia.

RESULTS: The internal consistency of the Swedish UGRS was good. The CFA yielded an acceptable fit for a two-factor hierarchical model with five sub-factors. Grief rumination was positively associated with all psychopathology symptom measures. Higher scores on UGRS were found in parents with possible prolonged grief disorder compared to those without (d = 1.47). Moreover, the Swedish UGRS was associated with prolonged grief symptoms over and above loss-related and demographic variables and other psychopathology symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS: The Swedish UGRS demonstrated good psychometric properties, which supports its use as a measure to assess grief rumination in Swedish bereaved parents in research and practice.