PW01-95 - Is It Possible To Distinguish Hallucination Like Experiences Between Clinical And General Population?

Abstract

Objectives

The goal of this work was to find out if the clinical professional could distinguish hallucination like experiences between clinical and general population through the analyze of their responses.

Method

The Revised Hallucination Scale (RHS) was administered to three groups included hallucinating schizophrenic patients, non-psychotic clinical disordered patients and a group of individuals with no psychiatric diagnoses. Also the frequency they were asked to give an example of a situation in which it had happened and to what they attributed it. Two clinical professionals analyzed the answers of all participants (blind related to the original group) and classified them in the three following groups: general, clinical non-psychotic and psychotic population.

Results

As the results show the experience of the non-clinical group was easily distinguished by the clinical professionals since those persons did not present neither disturbs nor disability. Concerning the non-psychotic clinical group was identified a major variability in the classification, fluctuating between typical characteristics of the clinical group (e.g. anxiety) and the general population. The classification of the hallucination patients indicated a strong relation with their original group.

Conclusions

It is suggested that from a clinical point of view it is possible to distinguish clearly between the experiences of people hearing voices and general population. Concerning the clinical population it is more difficult to differentiate this kind of experience between psychotic and non-psychotic populations. The relevance of the results is discussed.