An epidemiological study on the prevalence of hallucinations in a general-population sample: Effects of age and sensory modality

Larøi, Frank; Bless, Josef J.; Laloyaux, Julien; Kråkvik, Bodil; Vedul‐Kjelsås, Einar; Kalhovde, Anne Martha; Hirnstein, Marco; Hugdahl, Kenneth

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2019.01.003

Cited by 32 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS; Zigmond and Snaith, 1983). The HADS is a commonly used measure of anxiety and depression in clinical and non-clinical studies (e.g., Haj et al, 2018;Larøi et al, 2019). It consists of 14 items that participants rate on a Likert scale ranging from 0 to 3.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tailoring cognitive behavioural therapy to subtypes of voice-hearing using a novel tabletised manual: a feasibility study

Dodgson

Alderson-Day

Smailes

et al. 2020

Behav. Cogn. Psychother.

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Background: Cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis (CBTp) is a recommended treatment for psychotic experiences, but its effectiveness has been questioned. One way of addressing this may be to tailor therapy materials to the phenomenology of specific psychotic experiences. Aim: In this study, we investigated the acceptability of a novel treatment manual for subtypes of ‘voice-hearing’ experiences (i.e. auditory verbal hallucinations). An uncontrolled, single-arm design was used to assess feasibility and acceptability of using the manual in routine care for people with frequent voice-hearing experiences. Method: The manual was delivered on a smart tablet and incorporated recent research evidence and theory into its psychoeducation materials. In total, 24 participants completed a baseline assessment; 19 started treatment, 15 completed treatment and 12 participants completed a follow-up assessment (after 10 sessions of using the manual). Results: Satisfaction with therapy scores and acceptability ratings were high, while completion rates suggested that the manual may be more appropriate for help with participants from Early Intervention in Psychosis services rather than Community Mental Health Teams. Conclusion: Within-group changes in symptom scores suggested that overall symptom severity of hallucinations – but not other psychosis features, or beliefs about voices – are likely to be the most appropriate primary outcome for further evaluation in a full randomised controlled trial.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tailoring cognitive behavioural therapy to subtypes of voice-hearing using a novel tabletised manual: a feasibility study

Dodgson

Alderson-Day

Smailes

et al. 2020

Behav. Cogn. Psychother.

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“…Cronbach’s alpha for the two factors in the present study were moderate. This is not surprising given that it reflects the heterogeneity of hallucinatory and delusional experiences in the clinical reality: For example, while having hallucinatory experiences in one modality increases the odds of having hallucinatory experiences in other modalities, many individuals experience only auditory, or visual, or tactile, or olfactory hallucinatory experiences or various combinations thereof (Larøi, Bless, Laloyaux et al ., 2019). This is also true for delusions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping psychotic‐like experiences: Results from an online survey

Kusztrits

Larøi

Laloyaux

et al. 2020

Scandinavian J Psychology

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Suggestions have been made that psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), such as hallucinatory and delusional experiences, exist on a continuum from healthy individuals to patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. We used the screening questions of the Questionnaire for Psychotic Experiences (QPE), an interview that captures the presence and phenomenology of various psychotic experiences separately, to assess PLEs in Norway. Based on data from an online survey in a sample of more than 1,400 participants, we demonstrated that the QPE screening questions show satisfactory psychometric properties. Participants with mental disorders reported more frequent lifetime and current hallucinatory experiences than participants without mental disorders. Childhood experiences were rather low and ranged from 0.7% to 5.2%. We further replicated findings that young age, illegal drug use, lower level of education, and having parents with a mental disorder are associated with higher endorsement rates of PLEs. Finally, a binomial regression revealed that the mere presence of PLEs does not discriminate between individuals with and without a mental disorder. Taken together, the findings of the present study support existing models that both hallucinations and delusions exist on a structural and phenomenological continuum. Moreover, we demonstrated that the QPE screening questions can be used by themselves as a complementary tool to the full QPE interview.

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“…Although hallucinations from different sensory modalities frequently co-occur in clinical samples (Laroi et al, 2019; Lim et al, 2016; Llorca et al, 2016; McCarthy-Jones et al, 2017) and in the general population (Laloyaux et al, 2019), some clinical conditions are more likely to express hallucinations in specific sensory modalities, but as the disorders progress, hallucinations tend to expand to the others. In psychotic disorders, for example, auditory hallucinations are largely acknowledged as the most common sensory modality (Baethge et al, 2005; McCarthy-Jones et al, 2017; Mueser, Bellack, & Brady, 1990; Thomas et al, 2007), while visual, haptic and olfactory hallucinations are less common (Baethge et al, 2005; McCarthy-Jones et al, 2017; Mueser et al, 1990; Thomas et al, 2007) and associated with more severe cases (Chouinard et al, 2019; Clark, Waters, Vatskalis, & Jablensky, 2017; Lewandowski et al, 2009; Thomas et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To the best of our knowledge, only one study investigated multimodal (i.e. hallucinations in more than one sensory modality) v. unimodal hallucinations in a community-based sample (Laloyaux et al, 2019; Laroi et al, 2019). The authors found that, similarly to what happens in psychotic disorder (Llorca et al, 2016; McCarthy-Jones et al, 2017), the great majority of those in the general population who have auditory hallucinations present with hallucinations in other sensory modalities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for an interrelated cluster of Hallucinatory experiences in the general population: an incidence study

et al. 2020

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Background Although hallucinations have been studied in terms of prevalence and its associations with psychopathology and functional impairment, very little is known about sensory modalities other than auditory (i.e. haptic, visual and olfactory), as well the incidence of hallucinations, factors predicting incidence and subsequent course. Methods We examined the incidence, course and risk factors of hallucinatory experiences across different modalities in two unique prospective general population cohorts in the same country using similar methodology and with three interview waves, one over the period 1996–1999 (NEMESIS) and one over the period 2007–2015 (NEMESIS-2). Results In NEMESIS-2, the yearly incidence of self-reported visual hallucinations was highest (0.33%), followed by haptic hallucinations (0.31%), auditory hallucinations (0.26%) and olfactory hallucinations (0.23%). Rates in NEMESIS-1 were similar (respectively: 0.35%, 0.26%, 0.23%, 0.22%). The incidence of clinician-confirmed hallucinations was approximately 60% of the self-reported rate. The persistence rate of incident hallucinations was around 20–30%, increasing to 40–50% for prevalent hallucinations. Incident hallucinations in one modality were very strongly associated with occurrence in another modality (median OR = 59) and all modalities were strongly associated with delusional ideation (median OR = 21). Modalities were approximately equally strongly associated with the presence of any mental disorder (median OR = 4), functioning, indicators of help-seeking and established environmental risk factors for psychotic disorder. Conclusions Hallucinations across different modalities are a clinically relevant feature of non-psychotic disorders and need to be studied in relation to each other and in relation to delusional ideation, as all appear to have a common underlying mechanism.

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An epidemiological study on the prevalence of hallucinations in a general-population sample: Effects of age and sensory modality

Cited by 32 publications

References 20 publications

Tailoring cognitive behavioural therapy to subtypes of voice-hearing using a novel tabletised manual: a feasibility study

Tailoring cognitive behavioural therapy to subtypes of voice-hearing using a novel tabletised manual: a feasibility study

Mapping psychotic‐like experiences: Results from an online survey

Evidence for an interrelated cluster of Hallucinatory experiences in the general population: an incidence study

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