Authors (including presenting author) :
Chan MY, Cheng PYI, Lai TK
Affiliation :
Community Psychiatry Service, Department of Psychiatry, PYNEH
Introduction :
The experience of hearing voices that other people cannot hear, variously referred to as “hearing voices,” “voice-hearing” or “auditory hallucinations” has been reported for millennia (McCarthy-Jones, 2012). Extended voice-hearing experiences are reported by around 2.5% of the general population without a subsequent need for psychiatric care (McGrath et al., 2015). When voices are frequent, uncontrollable, and have negative content, they are likely to result in distress and problems with functioning (Daalman et al., 2011). Diagnoses that people distressed and impaired by voice-hearing may receive, depending on the other experiences that co-occur with the voices, include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder (Larøi, 2012). Voices hearing approach is an effective way of understanding voices that respects and privileges the voice-hearer’s beliefs, working with voice-hearers that allows the person to be the expert of their own experience, making sense of voices and providing hope to people to support their recovery goals (England, 2011). The study of the voices hearing group in community is usually in open group. However it was difficult to run in hospital settings as cost and time consuming. The establishment of structural 8-sessions voices hearing group was designed under the concept of voices hearing group to increase the feasibility at hospital settings.
Objectives :
To explore the effectiveness of structural 8-sessions voices hearing group in better coping with voices, inducing hope and reducing the mood fluctuation and anxiety for people with auditory hallucination in the community.
Methodology :
The voices hearing group was designed by psychiatric nurse who had received training of voices hearing approach. This group was specially designed with closed structure and 3 main themes: understanding the nature of the voices, exploring the relationship of the voices with life experience and building of a positive connection with the voices. The conduction of group was collaborated with peer support workers (people had live experience of hearing voices). There were 2 groups (intervention group with people experiencing voices and joined the voices hearing group; control group with people experiencing voices and living in the community). Pre and post-test of the Hope recovery scale (HRS), the Auditory Hallucinations Questionnaire Chinese version (AHQ-C), and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS 21) Chinese Version, were assessed. The results of two groups will be compared as the difference between the pre and post of each assessment. The study was conducted in the Community Psychiatric Service (CPS) of Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital (PYNEH) and the Shau Kei Wan Integrated Community Centre for Mental Wellness (ICCMW). Participants were recruited in both CPS and ICCMW. The sample size was 15 participants in each of the voices group and control group. There were totally 2 groups involved in the study, with a total of 30 participants.
Result & Outcome :
RESULTS The total score of DASS-21 of voices hearing group was significantly lower than that of control group (p< 0.01). The total score of HRS (p< 0.01) of the voices hearing group were significantly higher than those of control group. The total score of (AHQ-C) was significantly increased in voices hearing group compared to that of control group (p< 0.01). Voices hearing group was significantly increased the sense of hope, the confidence in coping with voices and reduced the anxiety when living with voices. CONCLUSION The structural 8-sessions voices hearing group empowered people to get new understanding with their voices and enhance the coping towards it. A new understanding of the voices itself and the relationship between oneself and the voices created new experience to handle the difficult situation.
