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Clinical Trial
. 2016 Dec 1:6:38152.
doi: 10.1038/srep38152.

Hallucinations in schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease: an analysis of sensory modalities involved and the repercussion on patients

P M Llorca  1   2 , B Pereira  3 , R Jardri  4   5 , I Chereau-Boudet  1   2 , G Brousse  1   2 , D Misdrahi  6   7 , G Fénelon  8   9   10 , A-M Tronche  1 , R Schwan  11 , C Lançon  12   13 , A Marques  2   14 , M Ulla  2   14 , P Derost  2   14 , B Debilly  2   14 , F Durif  2   14 , I de Chazeron  1   2
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Hallucinations in schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease: an analysis of sensory modalities involved and the repercussion on patients

P M Llorca et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Hallucinations have been described in various clinical populations, but they are neither disorder nor disease specific. In schizophrenia patients, hallucinations are hallmark symptoms and auditory ones are described as the more frequent. In Parkinson's disease, the descriptions of hallucination modalities are sparse, but the hallucinations do tend to have less negative consequences. Our study aims to explore the phenomenology of hallucinations in both hallucinating schizophrenia patients and Parkinson's disease patients using the Psycho-Sensory hAllucinations Scale (PSAS). The main objective is to describe the phenomena of these clinical symptoms in those two specific populations. Each hallucinatory sensory modality significantly differed between Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia patients. Auditory, olfactory/gustatory and cœnesthetic hallucinations were more frequent in schizophrenia than visual hallucinations. The guardian angel item, usually not explored in schizophrenia, was described by 46% of these patients. The combination of auditory and visual hallucinations was the most frequent for both Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia. The repercussion index summing characteristics of each hallucination (frequency, duration, negative aspects, conviction, impact, control and sound intensity) was always higher for schizophrenia. A broader view including widespread characteristics and interdisciplinary works must be encouraged to better understand the complexity of the process involved in hallucinations.

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Conflict of interest statement

Author Llorca P.-M. reports grants from Lilly, personal fees from Janssen, nonfinancial support from Roche, and grants from Otsuka, all outside the submitted work. Author Renaud Jardri reports personal fees for lectures: Lundbeck, Astra-Zeneca, Janssen-Cilag, Otsuka pharmaceutical, Shire and GlaxoSmithKline, all outside of the submitted work Author Brousse G. reports personal fees from Lundbeck, Janssen-Cilag and Otsuka pharmaceutical, all outside of the submitted work. Author Fénelon G. reports personal fees from Lundbeck and Teva Pharma, all outside the submitted work. Author Schwan R. reports grants from Boucharad and personal fees from Lundbeck, Janssen-Cilag, Otsuka pharmaceutical and Reckitt-Bekinson, all outside of the submitted work. Author Durif F. reports grants from CHU Clermont Ferrand, during the conduct of the study; grants from Novartis SA, Lundbeck, and Merz; and personal fees from Novartis SA, Lundbeck, Allergan, Aguettant, Teva Pharma, and Servier, all outside the submitted work. All other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Venn diagrams showing intersections between hallucination sensory modalities in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and schizophrenia (SCZ) patients (n = 200).
Understanding results guide For PD patients, 32 = Visual ∪Auditory ∩ Guardian angel ∪ Coenesthetic ∪ Olfactory For SCZ patients, 7 = Visual ∩ Auditory ∪ Guardian angel ∩ Coenesthetic ∩ Olfactory.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Spider diagrams of repercussion factors of hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and schizophrenia (SCZ) patients.
Frequency (Fq), duration (Du), unpleasant or negative aspects (NA), conviction (C), impact (I), control (Ctrl) and sound intensity (SI). For each spider diagram, data are expressed as means and standard deviations (SD) were placed in a box. *p < 0.05 (comparison between pathologic groups).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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