dc.contributor.author | Freeman, Daniel | |
dc.contributor.author | Diamond, Rowan | |
dc.contributor.author | Bird, Jessica C. | |
dc.contributor.author | Cernis, Emma | |
dc.contributor.author | Collett, Nicola | |
dc.contributor.author | Isham, Louise | |
dc.contributor.author | Lister, Rachel | |
dc.contributor.author | Waite, Felicity | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2019-09-24T22:38:25Z | |
dc.date.available | 2019-09-24T22:38:25Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2019-09 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Daniel Freeman, Anthony Morrison, Jessica C. Bird, Eleanor Chadwick, Emily Bold, Kathryn M. Taylor, Rowan Diamond, Nicola Collett, Emma Cernis, Louise Isham, Rachel Lister, Miriam Kirkham, Ashley-Louise Teale, Eve Twivy and Felicity Waite. The weeks before 100 persecutory delusions: the presence of many potential contributory causal factors. BJPsych Open (2019) 5, e83, 1–7. | en |
dc.identifier.issn | 2044-6055 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://oxfordhealth-nhs.archive.knowledgearc.net/handle/123456789/331 | |
dc.description.abstract | Background:The period before the formation of a persecutory delusion may provide causal insights. Patient accounts are invaluable in informing this understanding.
Aims:To inform the understanding of delusion formation, we asked patients about the occurrence of potential causal factors – identified from a cognitive model – before delusion onset.
Method:A total of 100 patients with persecutory delusions completed a checklist about their subjective experiences in the weeks before belief onset. The checklist included items concerning worry, images, low self-esteem, poor sleep, mood dysregulation, dissociation, manic-type symptoms, aberrant salience, hallucinations, substance use and stressors. Time to reach certainty in the delusion was also assessed.
Results:Most commonly it took patients several months to reach delusion certainty (n = 30), although other patients took a few weeks (n = 24), years (n = 21), knew instantly (n = 17) or took a few days (n = 6). The most frequent experiences occurring before delusion onset were: low self-confidence (n = 84); excessive worry (n = 80); not feeling like normal self (n = 77); difficulties concentrating (n = 77); going over problems again and again (n = 75); being very negative about the self (n = 75); images of bad things happening (n = 75); and sleep problems (n = 75). The average number of experiences occurring was high (mean 23.5, s.d. = 8.7). The experiences clustered into six main types, with patients reporting an average of 5.4 (s.d. = 1.0) different types.
Conclusions:Patients report numerous different experiences in the period before full persecutory delusion onset that could be contributory causal factors, consistent with a complex multifactorial view of delusion occurrence. This study, however, relied on retrospective self-report and could not determine causality. | en |
dc.description.sponsorship | Supported by the NIHR | en |
dc.description.uri | https://doi: 10.1192/bjo.2019.67 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en |
dc.subject | Sleep | en |
dc.subject | Worry | en |
dc.subject | Hallucinations | en |
dc.subject | Self-esteem | en |
dc.title | The weeks before 100 persecutory delusions: the presence of many potential contributory causal factors | en |
dc.type | Article | en |