Katharina Buczek
A new study led by researchers at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts has found that feelings of detachment may be an early indicator of post-traumatic mental health disorders.
This research, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, is now the most extensive study of its kind.
Scientists used data from the Advancing Understanding of Recovery After Trauma (AURORA) study, which included over one thousand and four hundred adults.
These adults received care at twenty-two hospital emergency departments across the nation following incidences of trauma.
Moreover, the hospitals all reported whether the patients experienced derealization.
Derealization is a more severe form of dissociation in which people might feel alienated from or unfamiliar with surroundings, feel emotionally disconnected from loved ones, and have distorted visual perception, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Then, three months after the patients’ initial hospital visit, the researchers gathered follow-up information about any depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, pain, and functional impairment.
The study found that patients who initially reported experiencing feelings of derealization were at a greater risk of suffering more severe post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, pain, and functional impairment.
Interestingly, through the use of brain imaging, the team also discovered that this derealization stems from unusual brain region activity.
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