“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”

Alan Watts

Latest Student Success

Congratulations to my former lab assistant, Sofia Duque, for graduating from CNU with a BS in Biology and being accepted to medical school!

 

Latest News Coverage

“CNU professor studies link between mental health and mass shootings.” 

Dana Smith

"CNU professor looks at gun violence’s toll on our mental health."

Lauryn Moss

Latest Magazine and Newspaper Coverage

“How Much Worry about Mass Shootings Is Too Much? Mass shootings are causing widespread anxiety among Americans. A new screening tool could identify those who are impacted enough to need mental health support.” 

Stephanie Pappas  

Current Projects

Mass shootings have caused many to feel anxious and afraid of this seemingly common occurrence. Some people are so fearful over this modern form of gun violence that they avoid going to certain places and events.  To help clinicians identify and support these anxious individuals, we are validating a mental health screening tool called the Mass Shootings Anxiety Scale (MSAS).

The death of a loved one can be an overwhelming experience.  Some people's grief is so severe that they can no longer function the way they used to. We are investigating this phenomenon from a biopsychosocial perspective using our newly developed tool, the Grief Impairment Scale (GIS).

Millions have died from COVID-19. Not surprisingly,  many people have been extremely anxious about being infected and dying from this disease. We are studying how fear and anxiety  over the coronavirus affects the mental health and well-being of people across the globe. Our current focus is on the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS),  Obsession with COVID-19 Scale (OCS), and the Coronavirus Reassurance-Seeking Behaviors Scale (CRBS).

The enormous loss of life from COVID-19 is difficult to fully comprehend. The unique circumstances of the pandemic (e.g. quarantine of the dying, disruption of funerals, social isolation of mourners) adversely affected many people’s adaptation to loss. To help clinicians identify those struggling with grief during the pandemic, we developed the  Pandemic Grief Scale (PGS) and the Pandemic Grief Risk Factors (PGRF).

Latest Training

Hospice Foundation of America 

Grief Impairment Scale: Research and Clinical Implications

Although most mourners are resilient, a significant minority experience a profoundly disruptive course of bereavement that substantially impairs their ability to function in crucial life contexts. This presentation reports the development of a brief and efficient 5-item screening instrument, the Grief Impairment Scale or GIS, which assesses the impact of loss on cognitive, behavioral, health, social role and interpersonal domains. Results document the coherent factor structure, internal reliability, construct and discriminant validity, sensitivity and specificity of the GIS in evaluating clinically significant functional impairment associated with grief and support its use in health and mental health settings for both epidemiological research and treatment planning. 

Latest Book Chapters

International Handbook of Behavioral Health Assessment

Editors: Christian U. Krägeloh, Mohsen Alyami, Oleg N. Medvedev

This handbook provides comprehensive coverage of self-report assessment instruments used in behavioral health research internationally. It presents different language versions, together with evidence for psychometric properties and the potential to compare scores across countries and languages.  This book is an essential reference for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians, therapists, and other mental health providers in clinical psychology, behavioral medicine, social work,  developmental psychology, psychiatry, public health, complementary and alternative medicine, occupational therapy, and all interrelated disciplines.

Lee, S.A., Close, S., Eads, D., & Pappalardo, E.A. (2023). Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS). In C.U. Krägeloh, M. Alyami, & O.N. Medvedev (Eds.), International handbook of behavioral health assessment (pp. 1-16). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89738-3_10-1

Lee, S. A., & Neimeyer, R.A. (2023). Pandemic Grief Scale (PGS): A clinical screening tool. In C.U. Krägeloh, M. Alyami, & O.N. Medvedev (Eds.), International handbook of behavioral health assessment (pp. 1-13). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89738-3_11-1

Latest Article

Illness, Crisis & Loss 

The aim of this study was to characterize the network structure of grief-related functional impairment symptoms as measured by The Grief Impairment Scale (GIS) in 520 Peruvian individuals who have experienced the death of a family member or loved one. A psychological network model was applied to evaluate the estimation, stability, and accuracy of the network during the analysis sequence. The results indicated that the inability to perform activities at work, school, or home was the most central symptom in the entire network. However, the presence of high instability in the centrality indices indicates that the central node may differ in other cultural contexts. The networks were invariant according to sex. The most influential node in the women's group was their inability to perform activities at work, school, or home. In men, the most central node was the presence of health problems due to bereavement. The results would help to better understand functional impairment due to bereavement

Caycho-Rodríguez, T., Ventura-León, J., Sánchez Carlessi, H. H., Reyes Romero, C., Matos Ramírez, P., Lee, S. A., Barrios, I., Torales, J., Vilca, L. W., Carbajal-León, C., & Hualparuca-Olivera, L. (2023). Network structure of bereavement functional impairment symptoms measured by the Grief Impairment Scale in a Peruvian sample. Illness, Crisis & Loss. https://doi.org/10.1177/10541373231191245

Latest Appointments


Death Studies 

Editors-in-Chief: Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD

Death Studies is an acclaimed journal that provides refereed papers on significant research, scholarship, and practical approaches in the fast growing areas of bereavement and loss, grief therapy, death attitudes, suicide, and death education. It provides an international interdisciplinary forum in which a variety of professionals share results of research and practice, with the aim of better understanding the human encounter with death and assisting those who work with the dying and their families.

I became an editorial board member for this leading thanatology journal in May 2024.

Journal of Clinical & Basic Psychosomatics 

Editors-in-Chief: Yonggui Yuan, Michael Linden

Journal of Clinical and Basic Psychosomatics (JCBP) is a peer-reviewed and open-access journal that aims to publish and disseminate novel research in the breadth of neurology and neuroscience. The journal aims to provide high-level academic communication for all professions and in all areas of psychosomatic medicine. The journal covers clinical and basic research on symptoms, assessment, treatment, illness management, and the mechanism behind psychosomatic disorders.

I became an editorial board member for this new medical journal in May 2023.