People with an at-risk mental state multimodal experiences
Research type
Research Study
Full title
What are people with an at-risk mental state, experiences of multimodal (unusual sensory) experiences?
IRAS ID
318529
Contact name
Charlotte Aynsworth
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear (CNTW) NHS
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 9 months, 6 days
Research summary
Multimodal experiences are unusual sensory experiences that occur in two or more senses. Where someone hears, sees, smells, tastes or feels things that feel real but isn’t there. The hallucinatory experiences aren’t necessarily related, but they can be related by time, for example seeing a shadow and hearing a screaming noise at the same time or related as the person believes they are from the same source, for example seeing and smelling a woman smoking.
These experiences are relatively common in the general population and very common in psychosis (a mental health problem). They are also common in people with an at-risk mental state, where someone is having mental health problems and could develop psychosis unless they receive the right support. There has been lots of research into auditory experiences, i.e. hearing voices as singular unusual sensory experiences, i.e., occurring on their own. However, recent attention to multi-modal unusual sensory experiences has found that these are more common than a hallucination in just one domain i.e., just hearing a voice.
However, we do not know much about these experiences because research has mostly focused on unusual sensory experiences in one sensory domain, usually voices and recently more visions. Most treatments are therefore unimodal; however, we know that unusual sensory experiences are common in ARMS (Dudely al, 2022, under review) and thus this research is going to explore this further.
This study will be the first to ask people with an at-risk mental state about their unusual sensory experiences, what they see/hear/feel/smell/taste and how these experiences are linked, how they make sense of them and what impact they have. We will use a set of structured questions, created with experts by experience (people who have had or do have an ARMS) and personalised questions depending on what each participant discusses. The study will use the service user of ARMS services in Newcastle and will last 2 years.
Summary of results
Thank you to study participants, they provided invaluable expertise.
The title was: what are people with an at-risk mental state, experiences of multimodal (unusual sensory) experiences?
The research was carried out by Dr Charlotte Aynsworth, Clinical Psychologist in Psychosis research and Rosie Hirst, trainee Clinical Psychologist. The sponsor was Cumbria, Tyne and Wear NHS trust and participants expenses were paid by the University of Newcastle. No competing interest. Who carried out the research? (including details of sponsor, funding and any competing interests) We had a public patient involvement of two people who had previously had an at risk mental state who helped write the interview questions and reviewed all written study documents.
The study took place in the north east in 2023 and 2024. Nine participants with an at risk mental state (someone who is being seen by an at risk mental state team, who has been deemed at risk of developing psychosis) The research was interested in multi-modal hallucinations and what these experiences were like for people. These are unusual experiences in any sense- hearing things other can’t, seeing things others can’t, feeling things others can’t, smelling things others can’t or tasting things others can’t. The main questions were, what do people experience? What do people think about these experiences? What impact do these experiences have?
The research was needed because we have previously researched hearing voices, and sometimes seeing visions but not unusual experiences in other senses. We want to find out about experiences in multiple senses and what impact these experiences have.
Participants took part in interviews with Rosie, the Lead researcher. Interviews lasted about an hour. Interviews were then transcribed and anonymised. The data was then analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis which is a type of data analysis that looks at language people use to understand how people feel and make sense of their experiences.
The study found peoples experiences were threatening; they understood the unusual experiences as real, bad and powerful. People tried to understand their experiences, sometimes they thought it was a sign of madness, illness or a result of traumatic experiences. Participants described the huge impact the unusual experiences had on their relationships, how they saw themselves and the world around them.
This research has developed our understanding of multi-modal unusual experiences and the huge impact they have on people.REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/WM/0252
Date of REC Opinion
1 Feb 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion