Dissociation, Depression and Trauma in Psychiatric Inpatients in Puerto Rico

This study investigated the frequency of self-reported childhood abuse experiences of psychiatric inpatients, and the presence of dissociative and depressive symptoms. A total of 100 Puerto Rican in-patients who were hospitalized during a two month period were included in the study. The participants' dissociative and depressive symptoms were assessed using the Dissociative Experiences Scale and a subset of its items (DES-Taxon), the Questionnaire of Experiences in Dissociation and the Beck Depression Inventory. We also used a self-report instrument to assess the frequency and severity of a variety of abusive experiences. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of the participants reported some type of abusive experiences, 38% reported extreme and frequent abuse, and 40% reported being sexually abused during childhood. The findings showed a correlation between greater frequency of the abusive experiences and higher levels of dissociative and depressive symptoms. When the variable of child sexual abuse was used, only the Dissociative Experiences Scale was able to detect differences between those patients who reported such abusive experiences and those who reported none. We conclude that the level of abusive experiences reported by psychiatric in-patients in Puerto Rico is very similar to the rate in other investigations in the international literature. The data demonstrate that the participants who report frequent and intense abuse endorse a wide variety of dissociative experiences, and, to a lesser extent, depressive symptoms. As more than 95% of our inpatients had never been screened or assessed for the possibility of a dissociative disorder, we suggest that clinicians in psychiatric units in Latin America should be more sensitive and attentive to the presence of such disorders.