The purpose of this study is to investigate the dissociative levels and histories of reported abuse among women psychiatric outpatients.

The author observed the dissociative levels and histories of reported abuse of the 66 women outpatients who visited psychiatric clinics, and compare dissociative symptoms of women who reported the history of physical and sexual abuse and symptoms of the others who did not have such history.

Results are as follows :

1) 54.5% of the other 66 outpatients of psychiatric clinic reported the history of abuse, including 13.6%, 24.2% and 16.7% of them reporting sexual abuse, physical abuse and physical and sexual abuse respectively.

2) Scores on the DES of abuse group was 18.6±16.3 which was significantly higher than DES of the non-abuse group(7.09±7.10).

3) Scores on the DES was highest in sexual abuse group, followed by physical abuse group and then physical and sexual abuse group. The percentile of score on the DES above 25 which was considered the score of dissociative disorder 44.4% of sexual abuse group, 18.8% of physical abuse group, 18.2% of physical and sexual abuse group, and 3.3% of non-abuse group.

4) Scores on the DES was variable according to the age of first abuse. It was highest in 7-11 years old group, followed by 12-16years old group, and then above 16years old group.

Sexual and physical abuse, especially sexual abuse, appears to be responsible for dissociation, or at least to ve a precipitating factor of dissociative experience.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the psychiatric problems of rape victims.

The author observed the psychiatric symptoms of the 10 women patients who visited psychiatric clinics immediately after rape after trauma, and made a related survey of 61 other 61 female outpatients in order to compare psychiatric symptoms of those of them who reported the history of rape trauma and those of the others who did not have such history.

Results are given as follows :

1) The most frequent psychiatric diagnosis of the victims of rather recent day's rape was posttraumatic stress disorder(4/10), followed by depression(2/10) and Schizoaffective disorder(2/10). The most frequent perpetrator was unknown person(8/10).

2) 49.2% of the other 61 patients of psychiatric clinic reported the history of abuse, including 26.2% and 36.1% of them reporting sexual abuse and physical abuse, respectively.

3) Sexual dysfunction was reported in 58.3% of the rape victims, who generally showed a tendency toward the high level of anxiety, hostility and paranoid symptoms.

4) The high scored dissociation was observed in rape victims but not in non-abuse group.

The rape trauma appears to be responsible for some psychiatric symptoms, or at least to be a precipitating factor of psychiatric disorders. The author also confirmed that aftermath of the rape trauma can continue rather perennially, for years after trauma or even for life ling.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the psychological problems in patients with pruritus.

The author compared the anxiety, depression and hostility levels between 47 patients suffering from pruritus and 52 normal controls by means of STAI(State-Trait Anxiety Inventory), BDI(Beck Depression Inventory) and Hostility scales. The subject was the patients with pruritus who visited the dermatology outpatient clinic of Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital.

1) The anxiety scale was significantly higher in the female patients with pruritus than in the normal female controls(p<0.01), but there was no significant difference between the male patients and the male controls.

2) There was significant difference in depression scale between the female patients showed a tendency toward higher depression.

3) There was no significant difference in hostility scale between the pruritus patient group and the normal control group.

High levels of anxiety and depression in pruritus patients, especially female. So the author think it will be necessary to treat psychiatrically those patients with pruritus who seem to be suffering from sort of psychiatric symptoms which can be checked by self-report questionaires.