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. 2021 Aug;51(11):1944-1950.
doi: 10.1017/S0033291720002433. Epub 2020 Jul 20.

Need for care, adversity exposure and perceived stress in clinical and healthy voice-hearers

David Baumeister  1   2 , Thomas Ward  1   3 , Philippa Garety  1   3 , Mike Jackson  4   5 , Craig Morgan  6 , Monica Charalambides  1 , Paul Chadwick  1 , Oliver Howes  3   7 , Emmanuelle Peters  1   3
Affiliations

Need for care, adversity exposure and perceived stress in clinical and healthy voice-hearers

David Baumeister et al. Psychol Med. 2021 Aug.

Erratum in

Abstract

Objectives: Psychosis, and in particular auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs), are associated with adversity exposure. However, AVHs also occur in populations with no need for care or distress.

Aims: This study investigated whether adversity exposure would differentiate clinical and healthy voice-hearers within the context of a 'three-hit' model of vulnerability and stress exposure.

Methods: Samples of 57 clinical and 45 healthy voice-hearers were compared on the three 'hits': familial risk; adversity exposure in childhood and in adolescence/adulthood.

Results: Clinical voice-hearers showed greater familial risk than healthy voice-hearers, with more family members with a history of psychosis, but not with other mental disorders. The two groups did not differ in their exposure to adversity in childhood [sexual and non-sexual, victimisation; discrimination and socio-economic status (SES)]. Contrary to expectations, clinical voice-hearers did not differ from healthy voice-hearers in their exposure to victimisation (sexual/non-sexual) and discrimination in adolescence/adulthood, but reported more cannabis and substance misuse, and lower SES.

Conclusions: The current study found no evidence that clinical and healthy voice-hearers differ in lifetime victimisation exposure, suggesting victimisation may be linked to the emergence of AVHs generally, rather than need-for-care. Familial risk, substance misuse and lower SES may be additional risk factors involved in the emergence of need-for-care and distress.

Keywords: Auditory hallucinations; psychosis; stress; trauma.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Proposed risk/adversity-exposure for CVHs and HVHs at each Hit.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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