Process / pipelineDissociative symptom severity assessment
Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES)
The DES is a 28-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure the frequency and severity of dissociative symptoms, including depersonalization (feeling detached from one's body), derealization (feeling the world is unreal), amnesia, absorption (intense focus), and identity confusion. Developed by Bernstein and Putnam in 1986, it is the most widely used dissociation screening instrument in clinical and research settings. The DES helps identify dissociative disorders (dissociative identity disorder, other specified dissociative disorder), trauma-related dissociation, and dissociative symptoms in other psychiatric conditions.
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Sources
- Bernstein, E. M., & Putnam, F. W. (1986). Development, reliability, and validity of a dissociation scale. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174(12), 727–735. DOI: 10.1097/00005053-198612000-00004 ↗
- Putnam, F. W., Carlson, E. B., Ross, C. A., Torem, M., Shi, Y., Fielding, S., & Elterman, E. (1996). Patterns of dissociation in clinical and nonclinical samples. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 184(11), 673–679. DOI: 10.1097/00005053-199611000-00005 ↗
- Carlson, E. B., Putnam, F. W., Ross, C. A., Torem, M., Coons, P., Bowman, E. S., ... & Spiegel, D. (2011). Features and outcome of 34 patients with dissociative identity disorder. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 199(8), 632–645. DOI: 10.1097/NMD.0b013e31822ab8a1 ↗