Measuring Psychotic-Like Experiences in the General Population.

INTRODUCTION

The notion of a full psychosis continuum in which psychosis is seen on a continuum with normal experience rests heavily on studies showing that psychotic symptoms are common in the general population. However, the methods of assessment in the studies have been criticized.

OBJECTIVES

(1) to investigate how many from the general population who answered positively on a psychotic-like symptoms questionnaire and (2) to clinically assess a subset of those with psychotic-like experiences (PLE).

METHODS

A self-rating questionnaire concerning PLEs was given to individuals from the general population. A subsample of those, who scored positively for PLEs, was clinically assessed for psychosis.

RESULTS

Totally, 5.7% of the participants rated positive for PLEs according to the self-rating questionnaire. Forty of these were clinically assessed and 7 (17.5%) of them were found to have had a psychotic experience, 4 of them were already in psychiatric treatment.

CONCLUSION

The self-reported psychotic-like phenomena were more common in the general population than psychotic disorders. However, when assessed clinically, the experienced phenomena did correspond to psychotic phenomena except in a few patients, who were found to suffer from a psychotic disorder. Overall, we did not find support for the full psychosis continuum model.