STUDY ON CLINICAL PRESENTATIONS, LEVEL OF STRESS & ROLE OF FAMILY ENVIRONMENT AMONG DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER PATIENTS

Background: Dissociative disorder is a stress-related disorder usually present in adolescent and younger age group. It is also accompanied with significant impairment in activity of daily living and family relationship. Family environment plays important role in initiation and maintenance of symptoms and this put significant burden on family. To assess different types of clinical presentations, level of stress and role of family environment among dissociative disorder patients and check for association between sex distributions. Material and Method: This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out on patients with primary diagnosis of dissociative disorder as per ICD-10 criteria coming to psychiatry outpatient department of Sri Aurobindo Medical College and Postgraduate Institute, Indore a premier tertiary care hospital situated at northern part of India, covering, and serving a large catchment area, during the period of 18 months. 80 patients were recruited for the purpose of study. The procedure and rationale for the study was explained to all subjects and informed written consent were taken in their local language. Patients were included after fulfilling inclusion criteria from both inpatients and outpatient department of psychiatry. Result: In our study, majority of the patients (48.75%) belonged to the age group 18-30 years. The prevalence rates decrease with age. 37.5% of the patients were between the age group 31-40 years and 13.75% were over the age of 40 years. In a study of 80 patients with dissociative (conversion) disorder, 77.5% were females and 22.5% were male. There was female predominance. Conclusion: Dissociative disorders are more common in females than males. It always occurs in the background of increased stressful life events and in the presence of significant psychosocial stressors. Future studies should be undertaken in a large sample with a prospective design to examine the impact of disease duration and other mediators, such as family type and coping style.