Psychiatric Disorders and Traumatic Life Events

Objective: This study investigates if participants diagnosed with psychiatric disorders report more traumatic life events and score higher on dissociative symptoms than participants without psychiatric disorders. Method: A structured interview regarding traumatic life events and the German version of the Dissociative Experience Scale was administered to 105 psychiatric patients, subdivided into three clinical groups (patients with borderline personality, anxiety, and somatoform disorders), and 72 healthy persons (control group). Results: Participants from all three clinical groups reported significantly more traumatic life events than participants of the non-clinical control group, and showed statistically significant higher scores for dissociative symptoms. Physical abuse such as repeated beatings by caregivers as a method of child rearing had markedly elevated levels for all three clinical groups as compared with the control group. The borderline personality disorder group reported the highest incidence of sexual abuse, and showed the highest scores on dissociative symptoms, exceeding both of the other patient groups. Conclusions Repeated physical and sexual abuse in childhood are severe traumatic life events and play an important role for mental health. To allow us to make conclusions about the impact of traumatic experiences on psychiatric disorders further prospective and controlled studies are planned and are expected to complement and confirm these results (German J Psychiatry 2004; 7 (3): 28-34).