THE DETECTION AND MEASUREMENT OF DEPERSONALIZATION DISORDER

Depersonalization disorder comprises one of the four major dissociativ e disorders and yet remains poorly studied. There are no reports descr ibing the application of dissociation scales to this population. Our g oal was to investigate the applicability of four such scales to depers onalization disorder and to establish screening criteria for the disor der. Two general dissociation scales and two depersonalization scales were administered to 50 subjects with DSM-III-R depersonalization diso rder and 20 healthy control subjects. The depersonalization disorder g roup scored significantly higher than the normal control group in all scales and subscales. Factor analysis of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) yielded three factors as proposed previously, absorption, amnesia, and depersonalization/derealization. A DES cutoff score of 12 , markedly lower than those previously proposed for the screening of o ther dissociative disorders, is required for the sensitive detection o f depersonalization disorder. Alternatively, the DES pathological diss ociation taxon (DES-taxon) score recently generated in the literature appears more sensitive to the detection of depersonalization disorder and is better recommended for screening purposes. The other three scal es were fairly strongly correlated to the DES, suggesting that they ma y measure similar but not identical concepts, and cutoff scores are pr oposed for these scales also. General implications for the screening a nd quantification of depersonalization pathology are discussed.