Schizotypy, dissociative experiences and childhood abuse: relationships among self-report measures

The traits and experiences that are seen as defining the schizophrenic and the dissociative disorders have been found to be present in continuously variable, non-pathological forms in the general population. Although the theoretical accounts that have been offered for the two kinds of disorder differ radically, there are reasons to expect that the measures that have been developed to assess schizotypal traits and dissociative experiences will be correlated. The aims of this study were to investigate the degree of correlation between measures and the extent to which the covariation can be explained by questionnaire items with similar content and experiences of childhood sexual and physical abuse.

Cross-sectional data from self-report measures completed by 224 participants were subjected to multivariate analyses.

The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), three subscales from the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE) and two items assessing childhood abuse were mailed to all adult members of a volunteer participant panel.

Moderately large correlations were found between the DES and both the Cognitive Disorganization and the Unusual Experiences subscales of the O-LIFE. These correlations were hardly affected when items with overlapping content were excluded. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that the measures of abuse accounted for small but significant proportions of the variance in both the DES and the Unusual Experiences subscale, but large proportions of the covariation between the measures of dissociative experiences and schizotypy remained unexplained.

The substantial correlations between measures point to limitations in the discriminant validity of the DES and two of the O-LIFE subscales. Three possible explanations are offered for the observed associations between dissociative experiences and schizotypal traits.