The dissertation of Kelley, IHM, MS_________________ entitled ...

Participants
Chapter II
Method
Grief in Women Religious 18
The participants in this study were 82 Roman Catholic women religious
who had experienced the death of a family member or friend within the past seven
months. In addition, 58% (n = 48) of the participants belonged to five active
congregations and 42% (n = 34) were members of 17 contemplative monasteries.
Furthermore, the participants were drawn from the New England, Mid-Atlantic,
Southern, and Midwestern states. The entire population spoke English and 89% of the
participants describe themselves as White/European American. In this study, the median
age for the active participants was 63 and the median age for the contemplative
participants was 61. This is comparable to the 1999 statistics for women religious in the
United States which reports a median age of 68 for active women religious and a median
age of 65 for contemplative women religious (Froehle et al., 2000).
Moreover, the participants represented a range of educational levels. See Table 1
for summary of demographic information. Approval to use human subjects was obtained
from the Human Subject committee of Loyola College in Maryland (see Appendix A).
Measures
Grief. Symptoms of grief were measured with Part II titled, "Present Feelings,"
of the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief (TRIG; Faschingbauer, Zisook, & De Vaul,
1987; see Appendix B). Faschingbauer et al. designed this measure to evaluate grief "as
a present emotion of longing, as an adjustment to a past life event, as a medical
psychology outcome, and as a personal experience" (1987, p. 111). The items of this