Is the Dissociative Experiences Scale able to identify detachment and compartmentalization symptoms? Factor structure of the Dissociative Experiences Scale in a large sample of psychiatric and nonpsychiatric subjects

Eva Mazzotti; Benedetto Farina; Claudio Imperatori; Federica Mansutti; Elena Prunetti; Anna Maria Speranza; Claudio Barbaranelli

doi:10.2147/NDT.S105110

Is the Dissociative Experiences Scale able to identify detachment and compartmentalization symptoms? Factor structure of the Dissociative Experiences Scale in a large sample of psychiatric and nonpsychiatric subjects

Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2016 Jun 3:12:1295-302. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S105110. eCollection 2016.

Authors

Eva Mazzotti¹, Benedetto Farina², Claudio Imperatori², Federica Mansutti³, Elena Prunetti³, Anna Maria Speranza⁴, Claudio Barbaranelli¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
² Department of Human Sciences, European University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
³ Associazione di Psicologia Cognitiva e Scuola di Psicoterapia Cognitiva, Rome, Italy; Casa di Cura Villa Margherita, Arcugagno (Vi) Italy.
⁴ Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy.

Abstract

Background: In this study, we explored the ability of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) to catch detachment and compartmentalization symptoms.

Participants and methods: The DES factor structure was evaluated in 768 psychiatric patients (546 women and 222 men) and in 2,403 subjects enrolled in nonpsychiatric settings (1,857 women and 546 men). All participants were administered the Italian version of DES. Twenty senior psychiatric experts in the treatment of dissociative symptoms independently assessed the DES items and categorized each of them as follows: "C" for compartmentalization, "D" for detachment, and "NC" for noncongruence with either C or D.

Results: Confirmatory factor analysis supported the three-factor structure of DES in both clinical and nonclinical samples and its invariance across the two groups. Moreover, factor analyses results overlapped with those from the expert classification procedure.

Conclusion: Our results showed that DES can be used as a valid instrument for clinicians to assess the frequency of different types of dissociative experiences including detachment and compartmentalization.

Keywords: Dissociative Experiences Scale; compartmentalization; confirmatory factor analysis; detachment; validity.