Trends of admissions of conversion disorder in Mosul Iraq

Our study aims to make inferences from inpatient admission of conversion disorder with regards it's age and sex distribution, clinical presentation, yearly distribution of admission and morbidity of conversion disorder in comparison to total psychiatric admissions. It also compares it's results with those of previous studies in this country, neighbouring countries and western studies.

A case notes review was done for admissions of this disorder for five years in Mosul University Hospital. The data were inputted into SPSS programme and analysed. The statistical analysis was by t-test, Anova and regression.

Two hundred seventy five patients were admitted during the period; 224 women and 51 men. The majority of men came from Urban areas compared to 58% of women. Single status was over represented; 59% compared to 34% married. Women formed 82% of the singles, 90% of the widows and 83% of the divorced. Pseudo-fits was the most frequent diagnosis. There was no significant change in the number of yearly admissions apart from the first year. The proportion of conversion disorders compared to total psychiatric disorders admissions was 7.4%.

Results were consistent with national studies but showed higher figures than neighbouring countries. What was interesting was that, results were consistent with figures in United Kingdom before 1950.