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    Trauma & stress · 8 items · 0-32 · Brief Dissociative Experiences Scale (Dalenberg & Carlson, 2010), modified for DSM-5 by the American Psychiatric Association.

    Severity of Dissociative Symptoms — Adult (DES-B): Scoring, Cutoffs & Interpretation

    An eight-item self-report measure of how often dissociative experiences have occurred over the past seven days.

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    DES-B0 / 8

    Answer each question about how often you have had the experience over the past seven days. Choose the option closest to your experience, even if none fits exactly. If you are completing this on behalf of a clinical review, answer as honestly as you can rather than as you think you should.

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    01I find myself staring into space and thinking of nothing.
    02People, objects, or the world around me seem strange or unreal.
    03I find that I did things that I do not remember doing.
    04When I am alone, I talk out loud to myself.
    05I feel as though I were looking at the world through a fog so that people and things seem far away or unclear.
    06I am able to ignore pain.
    07I act so differently from one situation to another that it is almost as if I were two different people.
    08I can do things very easily that would usually be hard for me.
    0 of 80 / 32

    Attribution & licence

    DES-B (Dalenberg C, Carlson E, 2010) modified for DSM-5 by C. Dalenberg and E. Carlson.

    02 - The clinician's brief

    Last reviewed: · Reviewed by Lotte Kjær Svalberg

    01 - Scoring & cutoffs

    How scoring works.

    Add the eight item scores for a total between 0 and 32. Dividing that total by eight gives an average item score between 0 and 4, which is the figure the DSM-5 severity descriptors are attached to. If one or two items are left unanswered, multiply the sum of the answered items by eight, divide by the number answered, and round to the nearest whole number. If three or more items are unanswered, do not calculate a total — the result is not interpretable.

    Score
    Severity
    Interpretation
    0–3
    None
    Average item score around 0. The DSM-5 descriptor at this point is 'none'. These are descriptive anchors, not validated cut-offs.
    4–11
    Mild
    Average item score around 1, which the DSM-5 descriptors label 'mild'. Nearest-anchor description only — there is no validated threshold for this measure.
    12–19
    Moderate
    Average item score around 2, which the DSM-5 descriptors label 'moderate'. Nearest-anchor description only — there is no validated threshold for this measure.
    20–27
    Severe
    Average item score around 3, which the DSM-5 descriptors label 'severe'. Nearest-anchor description only — there is no validated threshold for this measure.
    28–32
    Extreme
    Average item score around 4, the highest DSM-5 descriptor. Nearest-anchor description only — there is no validated threshold for this measure.

    This is a DSM-5 emerging measure intended to support clinical decision-making, not to establish a diagnosis. It has no validated cut-off score and no caseness threshold. A result here is not a diagnosis of a dissociative disorder and should be discussed with a qualified clinician.

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