Coping Strategies among Patients with Dissociative Disorder: An Observational Study

Various factors contribute to the development of dissociative disorders. The ability to cope with different stressful events is key to symptom manifestations in this disorder. This study aims to explore various stressors and coping strategies in patients with dissociative disorder and the relationship between coping strategies with stressors and clinicodemographic characteristics.

This was an observational cross-section study which evaluated patients with dissociative disorder presenting at the Department of Psychiatry in a tertiary care teaching hospital for 6 months (May to October 2017). We collected data on the demographic and clinical characteristics. We used the Presumptive Stressful Life Event Scale (PSLES) and Brief COPE scale to record the stressors and the coping responses, respectively. We summarized numerical variables with median and interquartile range (IQR) and categorical variables with proportions. Spearman rank correlation was run to determine the relationship between the PSLES and each coping strategy.

Of 108 patients, 86 (79.62%) patients were studied. 77 (89.53%) patients reported stressful life events, and failure in the examination was the most common stressor. Overall, coping strategies were used minimally. Problem-focused coping strategies were used slightly more frequently. There was no statistically significant correlation between stressors and coping strategies. Only religious coping was found to have a significant correlation with age.

The majority had stressful events. The use of coping strategies was uncommon. Problem-focused coping strategies were used more frequently.