Premium
Insight among psychotic patients with auditory hallucinations
Author(s) -
Lera Guillem,
Herrero Neus,
González Jose,
Aguilar Eduardo,
Sanjuán Julio,
Leal Carmen
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.20799
Subject(s) - auditory hallucination , psychosis , psychology , visual hallucination , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , delusion , audiology , psychiatry , clinical psychology , medicine
Poor insight in psychosis has been described as a seeming lack of awareness of the deficits, consequences of the disorder, and of the need for treatment. The aim of this study is to investigate whether patients with auditory hallucinations have less insight than those without hallucinations, and to determine which hallucination characteristics are related to patient insight. Using the PANSS and PSYRATS, the authors have evaluated the lack of insight data corresponding to 168 psychotic patients divided into three groups: patients with a history of nonpersistent hallucinations, patients with persistent hallucinations, and patients without hallucinations. Patients with persistent hallucinations showed significantly less insight than patients without persistent hallucinations and patients without hallucinations, the farther away the hallucination is located, the greater the lack of patient insight. Patients who hear the hallucination inside their head rather than outside show better insight, possibly because such patients can understand the voice as being created by their own mind. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 67:701–708, 2011.