Spirituality and belief in different types of Dissociative disorder: A cross sectional study

BACKGROUND: This study investigated Spiritual beliefs in various types of Dissociative disorder(DD). METHOD: Forty-four subjects diagnosed as dissociative disorder with their types according to ICD 10 diagnostic criteria, free of major comorbidities included in the study. Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire, the Spirituality Involvement and Belief Scale revised (SIBS-R) after validating in Hindi. RESULTS: Mean total SIBS scores were significantly different among various types of DD. Trance and possession type of DD had significantly higher spirituality score than NOS(p= .003), amnesia(p= .046) and motor type(p= .001) and insignificantly high SIBS score than convulsion(p= .331) and mixed type(p= .102). Scores of core spirituality factor were significantly higher in trance and possession type. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrates a distinct pattern of spiritual beliefs among various types of Dissociative disorder with higher scores in Trans and possession type. This study might be helpful to delineate, differentiate and understand the psychopathological aspects of spiritual beliefs in various types of dissociative disorder. In future, study designs measuring association of spiritual beliefs with dissociative severity including healthy controls can be promising.