Frequency, clinical and demographic correlates of pathological dissociation in Europe

Although pathological dissociation (PD) has received increasing scientific attention in Anglo-American countries, European research on the frequency, clinical and demographic correlates of this discontinuous construct are lacking. An 8-item subscale of the Dissociative Experiences Scale, called the DES-Taxon, was administered to five samples comprising a non-clinical population, students, unselected psychiatric inpatients, eating-disordered inpatients and psychosomatic outpatients with a total of 1,759 adult participants. In the two non-clinical samples, the frequency of PD ranged between 0.3 and 1.8%. Its prevalence was highest in the psychiatric inpatients (5.4%) followed by the eating disorders (4.8%) and the psychosomatic outpatients (2.2%). PD was seen in all diagnostic groups and it was associated with more psychopathological distress and younger age. PD is frequently found in clinical populations in European countries, too. However, methodological problems relating to its empirical determination might obscure the clinical and scientific value of the construct.