Nursing Care for Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative identity disorder is a common mental disorder. American Psychiatric Association (2000) defines DID as, “presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states that recurrently take control of the individual’s behaviour, accompanied by an inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness” (as cited in Ringrose, 2011, p. 294).Nursing Care for Dissociative Identity Disorder

Coons (1998) states that an individual suffering from DID shows different personalities who may have different ages, names, and functions (as cited in Gentile, Dillon & Gillig, 2013, p. 24). The original personality is host and developed personalities are alters who may have different level of conciousness and knowledge (Persin, 2011, p. 58). It is complex type of disorder, Briere & Elliott (2003) and Spitzer et al. (2006) estimate that 1 to 3 percentage of total population are suffering from DID in North America (as cited in Gleadhill & Ferris, 2010, p. 3). The complexities in personality of the DID patient make difficulty in treatment; however, Chlebowski and Gregory (2012) argue that sychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnosis, group and family therapy are common for the treatment methods for DID (p. 165). By developing effective long term nursing care plan, and implementing it through the individual, family or group therapy, nursing intervention can play important role for the treatment of DID patient having different symptoms.