By Keerthi Ramesh,
A team of researchers from the City University of New York (CUNY) and Weill Cornell Medicine has validated the first clinical tool in Hindi designed to diagnose prolonged grief disorder, a condition now recognized in leading psychiatric manuals.
The milestone fills a long-standing gap in culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health care for Hindi-speaking communities in the United States and beyond, according to a CUNY release.
Prolonged grief disorder, or PGD, refers to an intense, persistent form of grief that disrupts daily functioning long after the death of a loved one. It is now classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International Classification of Diseases as a distinct mental health condition.
The absence of a validated assessment in Hindi one of the world’s most widely spoken languages, has left many bereaved people without reliable pathways to diagnosis and support.
To address this gap, the research team translated, culturally adapted, and tested the Prolonged Grief Disorder-13 Revised Scale (PG-13-R) into what is now called the PG-13-R-H (Hindi version). The scale measures symptoms such as intense yearning and emotional pain and helps clinicians differentiate normal grief from disordered grief.
Led by CUNY researchers, including Dr. Apeksha Mewani of Lehman College and Dr. Vincent Jones II of York College alongside collaborators Sungwoo (Justin) Kim, Dr. Kim Glickman and scale originator Dr. Holly G. Prigerson of Weill Cornell Medicine, the project is a cross-institutional effort born from community need.
The validation study surveyed 527 Hindi-speaking adults living in the United States, recruited online and through community outreach in culturally diverse Queens, New York.
The results showed the Hindi scale to be both reliable and valid, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.75, indicating consistent performance across items. Roughly 15.6% of participants met the diagnostic criteria for PGD, while 41.7% reported a COVID-19-related death and 88.6% experienced an unexpected loss both recognized risk factors tied to prolonged grief.
For many participants, grieving in a diasporic context, where traditional rituals and extended family support structures may be lacking, may have compounded the distress.
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The researchers emphasize that culturally tailored tools like the PG-13-R-H not only improve detection but also connect people with care that respects their linguistic and cultural frameworks.
Dr. Mewani hopes the tool would “ensure that people who speak Hindi can have this mental illness clinically diagnosed and get the mental health support they need.” Pointing to the importance of culturally grounded care,Dr. Jones added that “language should never be a barrier to healing.”
Dr. Prigerson, whose work laid the foundation for modern PGD research, noted that making the scale available in Hindi furthers the goal of “helping those who are mourning, who never found a name” for what they were experiencing.
The study, “Psychometric Properties, Stability, and Predictive Validity of the Hindi Version of the Prolonged Grief Disorder Scale (PG-13-R-H),” appears in the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine.
Researchers say the scale will be useful not only in clinical settings but also for community health workers, counselors, and researchers aiming to improve mental health equity for Hindi-speaking populations.