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      Characteristics of Adolescents Affected by Mass Psychogenic Illness Outbreaks in Schools in Nepal: A Case-Control Study

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          Abstract

          This paper presents the first systematic case-control study of correlates of mass psychogenic illness (MPI) in an adolescent school population. MPI is generally construed as a dissociative phenomenon spread by social contagion to individuals who are prone to dissociation. We sought to test if the correlates of dissociative experiences most commonly proposed in the literature could predict caseness among students affected by episodes of mass psychogenic illness occurring in schools in Nepal. We assessed 194 cases and 190 controls ( N = 384) of ages 11–18 years from 12 public schools. Cases and controls were comparable on all demographic variables, except for family configuration, with nuclear families more common among those affected. In bivariate comparisons, caseness was associated with childhood physical neglect and abuse, as well as living in nuclear families, peritraumatic dissociation, dissociative tendencies, and depressive and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Hypnotizability emerged as the strongest correlate of psychogenic illness among the cognitive and personality trait variables. However, in multivariable logistic regression, the correlates of dissociation did not predict caseness, suggesting that they do not adequately account for the phenomenon of mass psychogenic illness. An ad-hoc Classification and Regression Trees analysis showed that if an adolescent was highly hypnotizable and reported high rates of peritraumatic dissociative experiences, then there was a 73% probability of being a case in a mass psychogenic illness episode. Future studies involving other psychological, social and cultural factors, as well as school- and family-related factors are needed to understand the correlates of mass psychogenic illness and guide prevention and intervention.

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Psychiatry
                Front Psychiatry
                Front. Psychiatry
                Frontiers in Psychiatry
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                1664-0640
                17 November 2020
                2020
                : 11
                : 493094
                Affiliations
                [1] 1Research Centre of the Douglas Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University , Montreal, QC, Canada
                [2] 2Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Global Mental Health Program, McGill University , Montreal, QC, Canada
                [3] 3Culture and Mental Health Research Unit, Institute of Community & Family Psychiatry, Jewish Genera Hospital and Lady Davis Institute , Montreal, QC, Canada
                Author notes

                Edited by: Wulf Rössler, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany

                Reviewed by: Etzel Cardeña, Lund University, Sweden; Tanya Luhrmann, Stanford University, United States; Vedat Şar, Koç University, Turkey

                *Correspondence: Ram P. Sapkota ram.sapkota@ 123456mail.mcgill.ca

                This article was submitted to Public Mental Health, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry

                Article
                10.3389/fpsyt.2020.493094
                7704439
                33312130
                1c74b8f3-40d7-4612-b328-d988aa4244dd
                Copyright © 2020 Sapkota, Brunet and Kirmayer.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 22 August 2019
                : 23 October 2020
                Page count
                Figures: 2, Tables: 5, Equations: 0, References: 111, Pages: 15, Words: 11845
                Categories
                Psychiatry
                Original Research

                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                mass psychogenic illness,emotional contagion,childhood trauma,spirit possession,nepal,dissociation,hypnotizability

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