Clinical Characteristics and Outcome of Persons with Conversion

In the present day more attention is focused on either medical or neurological disorders. Less attention is given to conversion disorders as considering the quantity of time it requires to be dealt with. These are the conditions that present as an alteration or loss of function in any modality i.e., motor function, loss of sight, hearing, sensation and pseudoseizures that cannot be fully explained by known pathophysiological mechanisms. Till date, very few studies have focused on the clinical characteristics of conversion disorder and outcome of psychosocial intervention.Thirty cases (mean age=19.63 years) with the diagnoses of conversion disorder according to DSM-IV were studied. In-depth interview was carried out to explore associated stressors/precipitating factors. Apart from this socio-demographic details were taken and also rated for ruling out psychiatric morbidity. Six to eight sessions of psychosocial intervention were planned to deal with the cases and improvement was rated for presence or absence of symptoms. Initial improvement observed between second and third session whereas significant improvement reported after six sessions (about two months). On follow up, all the treated cases were found to be maintaining normalcy even six months.