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

BackgroundThere 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.ObjectiveTo investigate the associations between dissociation, trauma, and hallucination-proneness in the general population sample.MethodsThe 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. A between-subjects ANOVA was conducted to investigate the associations between hallucination-proneness and levels of reported trauma.ResultsThere 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.DiscussionPrevious 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.