Beliefs and attitudes of family members towards patients suffering from conversion disorder

ABSTRACT

To evaluate the attitudes and beliefs of family members towards patients suffering from conversion disorder. Descriptive Cross Sectional study. Place and Duration of study The study was carried out in Khalifa Gul Nawaz Teaching Hospital Bannu, Pakistan, from February to May 2013. Subjects and Methods: A consecutive sample of sixty patients, suffering from conversion disorder was approached for the study. Family members were interviewed, using the Urdu version of a questionnaire modified from that of short explanatory model interview [SEMI] by Jackob et al. Data was analyzed by SPSS version 15 using descriptive statistics. Among sixty family members interviewed 56[93.6%] were males, and 30% of them were uneducated. Clinical presentation in most of the patients was in the form of pseudo seizures. One third of the family members were of the view that conversion symptoms were precipitated by stressful events in the close environment. One third of the informants thought that some of the close relative's behavior was working as maintaining factor behind the mental illness. Most of the family members visited psychiatric facility at "other's" advice. Before contacting the nearby mental health facility most of patients were first taken to faith healers [87%]. Ninety percent of them did not agree with any form of punishment therapy for their patients. Majority of family members had reasonable awareness about the psychological nature of the problem. However they also believe in spiritual and super natural forces as causative factors behind the common psychiatric disorder