Investigating hallucination-proneness, dissociative experiences and trauma in the general population

Abstract

Background: There is evidence to suggest trauma significantly predicts risk for psychosis. Dissociation might be a key causal variable, mediating the relationship between trauma and hallucination-proneness in clinical samples. Objective: To investigate the associations between dissociation, trauma, and hallucination-proneness in the general population sample. Methods: The study design was correlational and cross-sectional, using a convenience sample (N = 227). Pearson’s correlation coefficients were conducted to investigate the relationship between measures of hallucination-proneness and dissociative experiences, and subjective trauma and interpretations of voices. A mediation analysis was conducted to investigate whether dissociative experiences mediate the relationship between trauma and hallucination proneness. Results: There was a significant association between trauma and hallucinations, the severity of subjective trauma exposure was associated with increased hallucination-proneness. There was a significant correlation between hallucination-proneness and dissociative experiences. Dissociative experiences significantly mediated the relationship between subjective trauma and hallucination-proneness. Subjective trauma positively correlated with all measures of the interpretations of voices inventory. Discussion: Previous findings from clinical samples were replicated in this general population sample, providing support to traumagenic and continuum models of psychosis, which may have implications for clinical practice.