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Dissociation following traumatic medical treatment procedures in childhood: A longitudinal follow-up

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2006

TROND H. DISETH
TROND H. DISETH
Affiliation:
Rikshospitalet University Hospital, Oslo
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Abstract

Chronic illnesses often involve repeated hospitalization and invasive treatment procedures that can have a traumatic impact on child development. To explore possible consequences of treatment procedures, three groups of patients with congenital anomalies were examined longitudinally. At first admission, adolescents (ages 10–20, mean 15) with anorectal anomalies (n = 14), adolescents with Hirschsprung disease (n = 14), and hospitalized controls (n = 14) were assessed for treatment procedures, somatic function, mental health, and dissociative experiences. The assessment included the Adolescent Dissociative Experiences Scale (A-DES). At 10-year follow-up, the patients completed the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) and the Somatoform Dissociative Questionnaire (SDQ-20). Anal dilatation, an invasive medical treatment procedure performed daily by the parents the first 4 years, was correlated with the frequency and severity of persisting dissociative symptomatology. The procedure was the only significant predictor of A-DES and SDQ-20 scores, and one of two significant predictors of DES scores. This “experiment of nature” permitted a specific and unique opportunity to examine the impact of early traumatic exposure on child development in the absence of parental malevolence, and on later dissociative outcome in adolescence and adulthood. The findings might be valuable theoretically to our understanding of the development of psychopathology, and may lend itself for comparison with data on sexually abused children.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 233 - 251
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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