The Dissociative Subtype of PTSD Scale

Initial Evaluation in a National Sample of Trauma-Exposed Veterans

Wolf, Erika J.
Mitchell, Karen S.
Sadeh, Naomi
Hein, Christina
Fuhrman, Isaac
Pietrzak, Robert H.
Miller, Mark W.

¹National Center for PTSD at VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA
²Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
³Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, MA, USA
⁴National Center for PTSD at VA Connecticut Healthcare System, New Haven, CT, USA
⁵Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

Erika J. Wolf, VA Boston Healthcare System, National Center for PTSD, 150 S. Huntington Avenue (116B-2), Boston, MA 02130, USA. Email: [email protected]

Assessment 24(4):p 503-516, June 2017. | DOI: 10.1177/1073191115615212

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual includes a dissociative subtype of posttraumatic stress disorder, but no existing measures specifically assess it. This article describes the initial evaluation of a 15-item self-report measure of the subtype called the Dissociative Subtype of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Scale (DSPS) in an online survey of 697 trauma-exposed military veterans representative of the U.S. veteran population. Exploratory factor analyses of the lifetime DSPS items supported the intended structure of the measure consisting of three factors reflecting derealization/depersonalization, loss of awareness, and psychogenic amnesia. Consistent with prior research, latent profile analyses assigned 8.3% of the sample to a highly dissociative class distinguished by pronounced symptoms of derealization and depersonalization. Overall, results provide initial psychometric support for the lifetime DSPS scales; additional research in clinical and community samples is needed to further validate the measure.