Irum Siddique, Imtiaz Ahmad Dogar, Nighat Haider, Samreen Afzal.
Prevalence of Anxiety and Depression in Patients with Dissociative Disorders.
J Pak Psych Soc Jan ;12(1):21-3.

Objective: The study was designed to see the frequency of co morbid anxiety, depression and mixed anxiety and depressive disorder among patients having dissociative disorder. The second objective is to see the relationship of gender, education, marital status, availability of social support, family system, and socioeconomic status with dissociative disorder patients co morbid with psychiatric disorders. Study design: Cross sectional study design Place and duration of study: The study was conducted in the inpatient department of psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences DHQ Hospital, Faisalabad from June 2010 to May 2011. Subjects and Methods: One hundred patients with dissociative disorder participated in this study through purposive convenient sampling technique. Diagnostic and research criteria of ICD-10 was employed to diagnose dissociative disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, depression (Mild, Moderate, Severe) and mixed anxiety and depressive disorder. SPSS 17 was used to analyze the data. Results: Out of 100 dissociative patients 51 (51 %) had a psychiatric co morbidity. 16 (31.37 %) had Generalized Anxiety, 19 (37.25 %) had mild depression, 10 (19.61 %) had moderate depression and 06 (11.76 %) had mixed anxiety and depressive disorder. Most of the patients were females (93 %), single (67 %), with low education (most of patients were educated till 8th grade i-e- 35 %), having no family history of mental illness (72 %) and no past psychiatric history (79%). 85 % of the sample had social support available to them. Conclusion: There is high psychiatric co morbidity among dissociative disorder patients. The prevalence is high among young, females, single, low educated people. Every dissociative patient must be screened for depression and anxiety. It needs to be communicated to mental health professionals and general practitioners/medical specialists should be sensitized about early diagnosis, management and referral. It will help decrease the stigma and burden of the disease.

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