Dissociative experiences in adolescents and college students.

The authors administered the DL'>suciative txpmences Scale to 168 children aged j 2-14,345 college students with a median age of24 years, and 30 potienls in a Gen'atric Day Hospiiol. Scores were distributed in a highly left-shewed fashion, wilh no differences between males andfemales among the adolescents or colfege students. Themedianscorefortheadolescents was 17. 7forlhecollegestudents 7. 9 andfor the elderf)1 4.8. These findings suggest that dissociative experiences are morc common in ea-rly adolescence than in young adulthood, and that they continue to decline with increasing age after the third decade. Three scales have been developed for self-report measurementofdissociation (Bernstein & Putnam, 1986; Dyck & Gillette, 1987; Sanders, 1986). Only one of these, the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) (Bernstein &Putnam, 1986), has been subjected to a replication study (Ross, Nonon, & Anderson, 1988). The DES was therefore chosen as the insu'ument to measure dissociative experiences in normal adolescents and college students. Because of the increasing frequency with which dissociative disordms, especially multiplepersonalitydisorder (MPD) are being diagnosed (Kluft, 1987; Putnam, Guroff, Silberman, Barban, & Post, 1986; Ross, Norton, & Wozney, 1989), it is important to know the rate of dissociative experiences in the general population, and across the life cycle. We administered the DES to 345 college students, 168 adolescents age 12-14, and 30. Geriatric Day Hospital patients to determine the prevalence of dissociative experiences in these three groups. METHOD Subjects Subjects were recruited from three groups: I. Students at ajunior high school were asked to fill out the DES in their classrooms 2. Students at a university were likewise asked to fill out the DES during classes, or when presenting to the University Health SelVicesor Counselling Service 3. Patients at a Geriatric Day Hospital were administered the DES. Measures The DES is a 28-item self-report instrument with a testretest reliability of 0.84 (Bernstein & Putnam, 1986). It has good split-half reliability. The median Speannan rank-order correlation between the 28 items and the overall score is 0.64, with a range of 0.50 to 0.79. The DES is able to differentiate clinical groups from controls (Ross, Norton, & Anderson, 1988). Procedure Ethical approval for the project was received from the Faculty of Medicine and the Counselling Service at our university. The project was discussed with the principal of the junior high school, then with each classroom teacher in the school. There are 302 students in this school. Two students from the school entered the classrooms, explained the project and the questionnaire to the students, and then collected the completed forms from the teachers at a later time. At the uni\'ersity, the project was discussed with the Deans, the Assistant Deans, then the Department Heads, then the individual professors. As prearranged with the individual professors, the second author or a research assistant then entered the classes, explained the project and the questionnaire, and collected the DES forms immediately upon their completion. Students were selected to complete the DES using a sampling techniquc in which randomization was carried out with respect to faculty and year of study only, with students chosen from the faculty ofarts, faculty of science, professional u'aining faculties, the University Counseling Service, and the University Health Service. Each of the four fall, win ter, spring, and summer semcsterswere sampled, as were different undergraduate years. The students from the Counseling Service were seeking counseling for academic difficulties, vocational guidance or personal problems. At the Geriatric Day Hospital the majority ofsubjects re-