Spanish validation of the Detachment and Compartmentalization Inventory (DCI) in a community and clinical sample. A new instrument for measuring dissociation.

Introduction: Dissociative symptoms are a type of phenomenon which is present in a wide variety of psychopathological disorders. It is therefore necessary to develop scales that measure this type of experience for therapy and research. Starting out from the bipartite model of dissociation, this study intended to adapt and validate the Detachment and Compartmentalization Inventory (DCI) in Spanish.

Material And Methods: For this, 308 participants (268 from the community population and 40 with psychiatric pathology) completed the DCI, the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES-II), the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire (SDQ20) and the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS).

Results: The results showed that the Spanish version has a two-factor structure similar to the original version and was invariant across participants. The reliability of DCI scores was adequate and acquired evidence of validity related to other instruments.

Conclusions: It is concluded that the DCI is a valid scale for detecting detachment and compartmentalization dissociative experiences, both in the clinic and research.