[Screening for major dissociative disorders with the FDS, the German version of the Dissociative Experience Scale].

UNLABELLED: The prevalence of major dissociative disorders (dissociative identity disorder, DID and similar forms of dissociative disorder not otherwise specified, DDNOS) in clinical samples is about 5 %. Despite their frequency, major dissociative disorders are often overseen for a long time. Screening-scales have proved to be effective to support clinical diagnosis. The aim of this study was to test, whether the Fragebogen für dissoziative Symptome (FDS), the German version of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), differentiates between patients with dissociative disorders, non-dissociative disorders and non-clinical controls. Additionally, an optimal FDS-cutoff for a more detailed differential-diagnostic evaluation of the dissociative symptomatology should be identified. 150 participants with DID (group DID: n = 44), DDNOS (DDNOS: n = 22), posttraumatic disorders (TRAUMA: n = 20), other non-dissociative disorders (non-TRAUMA: n = 34) and non-clinical controls (KG: n = 30) completed the FDS. In the five diagnostic groups, mean values were calculated and compared for the FDS, DES and FDS-20. Via receiver-operating-curves the cutoff-scores, which differentiated best between participants with and without major dissociative disorders, were identified. FDS, DES and FDS-20 differentiate significantly between patients with and without major dissociative disorders. For all scales, there were significant differences between the diagnostic groups, with mean-scores decreasing continuously from the groups DID to DDNOS and TRAUMA. Between the groups non-TRAUMA and KG tendencies were found in the predicted direction. The optimal cutoff-scores to differentiate between participants with and without major dissociative disorders were 13 (FDS/FDS-20) and 15 (DES). Using these cutoff-scores, at least 90 % of the patients with major dissociative disorders could be identified correctly (sensitivity). The specifity of the scales was 0.89 to 0.90.

CONCLUSION: Screening for major dissociative disorders with the FDS, DES and FDS-20 allows to identify patients with or without major dissociative disorders correctly in about 90 % of the cases. Therefore, the FDS should be used routinely in psychiatric and psychotherapeutic clinics and practices to identify high risk patients. Such a procedure would be an important step towards an improvement of the diagnostic and therapeutic care of patients with major dissociative disorders, which is still often unsatisfactory at present.