THE HYSTERIA

CONVERSION DISORDERS

Abstract

Objectives: To find out the sociodemographic characteristics of
conversion disorders and to find if there is any difference between the presenting symptoms of rural and urban
population. Design: A non-probability, purposive, hospital based sample. Place and Duration of Study: Psychiatry
department of Victoria Hospital Bahawalpur, from February 2004 to April 2005. Patients and Method: A sample of 100-
patients was collected. Both sexes were included. DSM-IV criteria for conversion disorder were applied for diagnosis
of all these patients. Informed consent was taken for inclusion in the study. Patients suffering from concurrent physical
disorders were excluded. The first author (NM.) using a semi-structured pro-forma interviewed all these patients. The
sociodemographic characteristics and the clinical profile were collected. Statistical analysis was made with the statistical
package for windows, SPSS (version –10). The applied method for group comparison was chi square- test. Results:
The mean age of patients from the urban area was 24.26±7.25 years, as compared to 22.15±7.49 years for the
patients from the rural area. Most of the patients were females and were married. Majority of the patients from the urban
as well as from the rural area were uneducated and from the lower socio-economic class. The onset of illness was
typically acute and sudden, with precipitating life event. Majority of the patients had family history of the illness and comorbid
psychiatric disorders. The presenting symptoms were either sensory, motor, mixed symptoms and psuedoseizures.
The presenting symptoms of patient from both urban (p value of 0.008), and rural area (P value =0.013), were
statistically significant. There were no statistically significant association between the presenting symptoms and the
area of living. The p values of the entire chi square tests were greater than (0.05). Conclusion: Prompt elimination of
the symptoms of conversion disorder is important to prevent secondary gains from reinforcing it and causing it to persist
or reoccur. Psychiatric services need to be developed and updated for the provision of prompt and efficient treatment,
for the patients with these chronic and sometimes disabling conversion disorders.