Citation

Nilsson D, Svedin CG. J. Trauma Dissociation 2006; 7(3): 65-89.

Affiliation

Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden. Doris.nilsson@lio.se

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

16873230

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the Dissociation Questionnaire in a normative adolescent population and also to investigate dissociative symptoms associated with trauma including sexual and physical abuse. A normative sample of 449 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 and a clinical group of 74 adolescents with known experiences of trauma, sexual and/or physical abuse was given Dis-Q-Sweden. A mixed group of 22 abused and non-abused adolescents who answered Dis-Q-Sweden was also interviewed by using the Structural Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders (SCID-D). A test-retest procedure was conducted with 90 subjects from the normative group. The results showed good reliability concerning both internal consistency and test-retest stability. Validity was tested in several ways (criterion, predictive, construct and concurrent) and found to be satisfactory. Significant differences for the total sum scores of Dis-Q-Sweden were found between the normative group and the clinical group with known sexual abuse (p<0.001). The prevalence of dissociative symptoms (cut-off score>2.5) was 2.3% in the normative group and 50% in the clinical group. Dis-Q-Sweden has proven to be a screening instrument with good psychometric properties and has proven to be able to capture dissociative symptoms in adolescents with self-reported trauma and known trauma (sexual abuse).

Language: en