The internal structure of the phenomenology of auditory verbal hallucinations
Section snippets
Phenomenological variables
Twenty AVH variables were identified based on the literature and clinical experience of the authors (Table 1). The selection of the variables was guided by the possibility of specific pathophysiology underlying the variables. Records of 100 patients with history of AVH in outpatient treatment in the Minneapolis VA Medical Center were reviewed for information about the patients' descriptions of their hallucinations. Patients were selected from the caseloads of three psychiatrists in the clinic.
Hierarchical cluster analysis
HC yielded a two-cluster solution (Fig. 1). The first cluster includes “all control strategies”, “self attribution”, “repetitive content”, “other hallucinations”, “clear acoustics”, “low linguistic complexity, words”, and “outer space location”. The second includes “systematized content”, “high linguistic complexity, conversation”, “inner space location”, “multiple voices”, “attribution of the voices to others”, “nosognosia”, “episodic occurrence”, “spontaneous occurrence”, and “intermediate
Discussion
Asking patients for detailed description of their hallucinations does not seem to be part of routine practice of general psychiatry. Only the records of patients participating in a research protocol contained information about the characteristics of AVH. This could be related to the fact that such detailed description would not affect significantly the diagnostic formulations and treatment plan. In this study, most patients welcomed the opportunity of talking about their experiences and this
Acknowledgements
Supported by a research grant from the Mind Institute. We also would like to thank Mrs. Martha Muska and Mrs. Barbara Larson from the Martha and William Muska fund and the Saint Paul Foundation for their support of this research.
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