Prevalence of Dissociative Disorders in Psychiatric Outpatients

Abstract

Dissociative disorders were highly prevalent in this clinical population and typically had not been previously diagnosed clinically. The high prevalence of dissociative disorders found in this study may be related to methodological factors (all patients were offered an interview rather than only those who had scored high on a screening self-report measure) and epidemiological factors (extremely high prevalence rates for childhood physical and sexual abuse were present in the overall study population).

Global functioning and disability in dissociative disorders

“…The proportion of 18.8% DD that we ascertained in our sample is comparable to previous findings in corresponding treatment settings in the US (Graves, 1989;Lussier et al, 1997;Foote et al, 2006) , Turkey (Sar et al, 2000), Finland (Lipsanen et al, 2004), and China (Xiao et al, 2006), thereby supporting the cross-cultural validity of DDs. All of our DD subjects had at least 1, and on average 3, comorbid axis I disorders.…”

“…Despite their frequency of occurrence in psychiatric populations, the clinical relevance of DDs is unclear. In clinical practice, they are rarely diagnosed and rarely considered in treatment planning (Foote et al, 2006;Ginzburg et al, 2010). Some clinicians even question the diagnostic validity of certain types of DDs (Pope et al, 1999;Ginzburg et al, 2010).…”

Parasomnia and Dissociative Disorders

“…Personality dissociation that develops to protect oneself from intense anxiety in the face of danger or intense stress can manifest itself in the form of dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, depersonalization, SW and ST [26]. Some authors report that Sleep-related aggressive behavior can be correlated with dissociative identity disorder in particular, dissociative fugue or dissociative disorder that cannot be named otherwise [8,20]. It is emphasized that the dissociative experiences during the daytime for those exposed to traumatic events can also occur at night and can be a cause of parasomnia [9,27].…”

“…Zadra et al were reported that NREM parasomnia episodes can be alpha, theta and delta wave or a combination of them without full awakening [31]. It was emphasized that, in PSG examination, hypersynchronous delta wave activity is seen at the beginning of NREM parasomnia episode [32], and that spectral wave power and slow delta waves were seen before the beginning of parasomnia episodes [8]. In our study, Group I had Sleep quality failure, delayed Sleep latency and Sleep Disorders, with subjective evalution of Sleep.…”

“…Reports on the facts that chronically recurring traumas since childhood are correlated with dissociative disorder [7] and people exposed to traumatic events are more dissociated than those who were not [8] have suggested that dissociative experiences of parasomnia patients that occur during daytime can also emerge at nighttime [9,10]. Heterogeneity in parasomnia etiology and the overlap between dissociative Disorders and parasomnias at the symptom level have caused the researchers to study the similarities between these diseases and whether or not there are separate diseases or different subtypes of the same disease.…”