Cardeña E, Spiegel D
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Calif.
Am J Psychiatry. 1993 Mar;150(3):474-8. doi: 10.1176/ajp.150.3.474.
This study systematically evaluated the psychological reactions of a nonclinical population to the October 1989 earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area.
A representative group of about 100 graduate students from two different institutions in the Bay Area volunteered to participate in the study. Within 1 week of the earthquake, the authors administered a checklist of anxiety and dissociative symptoms to the subjects, and 4 months later they conducted a follow-up study with the same checklist.
The participants reported significantly greater numbers and frequency of dissociative symptoms, including derealization and depersonalization, distortions of time, and alterations in cognition, memory and somatic sensations, during or shortly after the earthquake than after 4 months. To a lesser degree they also reported significantly more nonsomatic anxiety symptoms and Schneider's first-rank symptoms at the earlier testing time.
These results suggest that among nonclinical populations, extreme distress may significantly increase the prevalence and severity of transient dissociative phenomena and anxiety. They provide further evidence of the role that dissociation plays in the response to trauma and are of considerable clinical and theoretical importance in view of the lifetime prevalence of traumatic experiences in the general population.
本研究系统评估了非临床人群对1989年旧金山湾区地震的心理反应。
从湾区两所不同机构选取约100名研究生组成一个代表性群体，他们自愿参与该研究。地震发生后1周内，作者对受试者进行了焦虑和解离症状清单调查，4个月后使用相同清单进行了随访研究。
参与者报告称，地震期间或刚结束后，解离症状（包括现实解体、人格解体、时间扭曲以及认知、记忆和躯体感觉改变）的数量和频率显著高于4个月后。在早期测试中，他们还报告了程度较轻但数量显著更多的非躯体性焦虑症状和施奈德一级症状。
这些结果表明，在非临床人群中，极度痛苦可能会显著增加短暂解离现象和焦虑的发生率及严重程度。它们进一步证明了解离在创伤反应中的作用，鉴于一般人群中创伤经历的终生患病率，这具有相当重要的临床和理论意义。
