Dissociative Phenomenology and General Health in Normal Population

Background: Dissociative symptoms are most commonly found in females and adolescents, and when discussing their background, they can be from lower socio-economic backgrounds and rural areas. They are always preceded by psychosocial stressors. Dissociative disorders previously known as “hysteria” have been described since antiquity and Hippocrates even hypothesised “wandering uterus” to be the cause for dissociation in females. With the advances in science, there has been shift from these religious and spiritual concepts to a scientific basis for dissociation. Aim: To assess the dissociative phenomenology in normal population and to assess the subjective health in normal population. Methods: A group of 100 (50 females & 50 males) were selected from the community using a snowball sampling technique. Tools: Socio-demographic data sheet, General Health Questionnaire-12 and Dissociative Experience Scale-II were used. Results: The study found that females differ from males in the reporting of subjective health rating (X=5.76, p=0.01) and similar results shown in terms of dissociative phenomenology (X=67.76, p=0.001). Discussion: It has been found that only 4% from the female group and 2% from the male group rated their health under the “normal” category. 52% of females and 64% of males were categorised under “mild ill health” and 24% to 26% were in “moderate ill health”, whereas 20% of female participants and 8% of male participants rated their health as “severely ill”. In another domain of the study, dissociative phenomenology, 32% of female participants reported severe dissociative symptoms and 38% of male participants also showed similar results. Conclusion: Dissociative disorder significantly affects the population but it is hard to diagnose due to factors such as; cultural factors, socio-economic factors etc. The study shows clearly that dissociative symptoms are found in the general population also.