Dissociative symptoms predict severe illness presentation in Canadian public safety personnel with presumptive post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Nearly a quarter of this sample of Canadian PSP reported experiencing elevated levels of PTSD-related dissociation (depersonalization and derealization). These high levels of depersonalization and derealization were consistently positively associated with greater illness severity across clinical measures. It is imperative that dissociative symptoms be better recognized in patient populations that are exposed to chronic traumatic events such as PSP, so that treatment interventions can be designed to target a more severe illness presentation.