Dissociation and Traumatic Experiences in Eating Disorders

The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of trauma and dissociative experiences in a group of patients with eating disorders. One hundred and three patients were assessed at the beginning of inpatient treatment, using the Dissociation Questionnaire (DIS-Q) and a semi-structured interview. DIS-Q scores were compared for patients and a group of 112 high school graduating students serving as controls. Of the patients 37.8 per cent reported traumatic experiences. The highest trauma rate was among patients with bulimic symptoms. Notable differences were found between the patients and the control group in terms of the total DIS-Q score and on all subscales. Twenty patients (19.4 per cent) demonstrated pathological dissociative experiences (versus 3.6 per cent in the control group). Among patients, the highest total DIS-Q scores were displayed by bulimic patients, whereas the lowest were found in obese patients. Our data support the hypothesis that trauma-induced dissociative experiences may influence the development of eating disorders, at least for certain subgroups of eating disorders (i.e. underweight and normal weight bulimic subjects).