Dissociative sensibility disorders - A retrospective case series and systematic literature review.

CONTEXT

Dissociative disorders present a huge challenge in clinical settings. In contrast to other dissociative symptoms, dissociative sensibility disorders are rarely focused on.

OBJECTIVE

To identify the clinical characteristics and outcomes of dissociative sensibility disorders in children and adolescents, and to review the use of diagnostic procedures.

DATA SOURCES

For the review, a literature search used Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science, and PubPsych (to 02/2015) and the reference lists of the studies identified.

STUDY SELECTION

Screening of titles and abstracts; full-text assessment by two reviewers.

DATA SELECTION

The original case series was identified by using the local data register.

DATA EXTRACTION

Two reviewers independently reviewed the data and, if they agreed on the relevance, extracted the data. In the original case series, data were extracted retrospectively from the records.

RESULTS

Sixteen studies and seven case reports were identified, including 931 cases with dissociative disorders. In 210 cases the patient suffered either from a single sensibility disorder or predominantly from sensibility disorders. We identified thirteen further cases in our cohort. In both groups there was female predominance; the mean age of manifestation was early adolescence. The timing of admissions was variable. In approximately 50% of cases a premorbid stressful life event could be identified. Over 75% of cases had a good prognosis with complete resolution.

LIMITATIONS

Retrospective character of our own data collection, partially missing differentiation between the subgroups of dissociative disorders in the reviewed studies.

CONCLUSIONS

There is no uniform procedure for diagnostic work-up. The overall short-term prognosis is good.