The Varieties Of Individual voiCe-Experiences Scale (VOICES)

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  The Varieties Of Individual voiCe-Experiences Scale (VOICES): A novel questionnaire to understand the experience of hearing voices.

• IRAS ID

  255989

• Contact name

  Emmanuelle Peters

• Contact email

  emmanuelle.peters@kcl.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  King's College London

• Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

  225989, 20/10/0010

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 0 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  The objective of this study is to evaluate a novel questionnaire that measures the different characteristics of auditory verbal hallucinations across the psychosis continuum. Auditory verbal hallucinations occur in healthy members of the general public (i.e., ‘non-clinical’ or healthy voice-hearers) as well as people with psychotic disorders (i.e., ‘clinical’ voice-hearers), and do not necessarily cause distress or imply ‘need for care’ in the healthy voice hearers (Baumeister et al., 2017; Johns et al., 2014). A consistent finding is that clinical voice-hearers experience predominantly negative voice content, whereas healthy voice-hearers typically report neutral or positive voice content (Baumeister et al., 2017; Johns et al., 2014). Furthermore, the literature on healthy voice-hearers highlights the potential for auditory verbal hallucinations to be experienced as beneficial and life-enriching (Baumeister et al., 2017; Johns et al., 2014).
  Most currently available measures that aim to capture the experiences of voice-hearers have been developed in a clinical context, where positive or neutral characteristics of voices have been largely ignored. (Baumeister et al., 2017). We have developed a novel scale that attempts to cover the potential spectrum and variety of voice-experiences more
  fully. We have been careful to use language that will be acceptable and understandable to healthy voice-hearers, as well as a clinical population. Data have already been collected from healthy voice-hearers, and in this study we would like to administer the scale to a clinical sample for validation and comparison purposes. The aim of this research is to have a tool that can further our understanding of voice-hearing in a wide range of populations, ultimately to enable us to refine psychological interventions for people whose voices are distressing.

• REC name

  London - Dulwich Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  20/LO/0010

• Date of REC Opinion

  16 Jan 2020

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion