The role of death anxiety, self-esteem and attachment in paranoia V(1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The role of death anxiety, self-esteem and attachment in subclinical and clinical paranoid ideation V(1.0)
IRAS ID
291762
Contact name
Peter Kinderman
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Liverpool
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 31 days
Research summary
Death anxiety has been researched in social psychological literature and is associated with extreme beliefs. Some evidence suggests it is associated with a range of presentations of psychological distress but its role in paranoid thinking is yet to be explored. Self-esteem and secure attachment are known to protect against death anxiety but are known to be impaired in paranoia. Therefore, people who experience paranoia may also experience death anxiety.
This project will aim to recruit 85 individuals from both clinical and non-clinical populations to investigate the relationship between self-esteem, attachment, death anxiety and paranoid thinking. Clinical participants will include individuals aged 18-65 who have a diagnosis of psychotic spectrum disorder. Non-clinical participants will include individuals 18-65 who have not received psychiatric care for a psychotic spectrum disorder. Clinical participants will be recruited from several community mental health services across the North-west.
Participants will be asked to complete several questionnaire measures which investigate paranoia, death anxiety, attachment, self-esteem and hallucination proneness.
We will also seek to complete a secondary analysis providing recruitment is successful which will compare mechanisms between clinical and non-clinical populations.
It is hypothesised that (i) There will be a relationship between death anxiety and paranoia in clinical and subclinical populations, (ii) death anxiety, self-esteem and attachment anxiety will predict paranoid thinking in clinical and subclinical populations iii) death anxiety and paranoid ideation will be higher in clinical populations than non-clinical populations.REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
21/IEC08/0013
Date of REC Opinion
19 Aug 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion