Stress-reactivity in clinical and non-clinical voice hearers
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Stress-reactivity in clinical and non-clinical voice hearers
IRAS ID
149736
Contact name
David Baumeister
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
The present project aims to investigate differences in subjective and physiological stress-reactivity in clinical and non-clinical voice-hearers. Voice-hearing occurs in both patients with clinical psychosis as well as healthy individuals within the general population. However, it is not clear why this symptom causes significant distress in some, but not others. When compared to healthy controls who do not hear voices, clinical voice-hearers show altered subjective and physiological responses to psychosocial stress as well as an impaired ability to register negative feedback within the hormonal stress system. Thus, stress function may also be a factor that discriminates clinical and non-clinical voice hearers and impacts on the need for clinical care. Further, evidence suggests that the way people psychologically appraise their voices may determine the impact of the experience, and mindful responding and acceptance, which are characterised by non-judgemental awareness of the present moment and experience, may be associated with reduced distress, better coping, and less interference to everyday functioning. Since they share similar experiences as psychotic patients without the distress and disability, healthy voice-hearers are an ideal group to investigate whether stress-reactivity and physiological stress function distinguish healthy and clinical voice-hearers, and whether differences in subjective and physiological stress-reactivity are influenced by a mindful personality trait, beliefs about voices, mood, perceived life stress and/or previous exposure to stressful life events. Moreover, as mindfulness-based interventions have shown efficacy as stress-reduction methods in psychosis samples, exposure to a brief mindfulness meditation may normalise the stress-response in the clinical voice-hearers.
REC name
London - Dulwich Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/0880
Date of REC Opinion
6 Aug 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion