The scant body of research regarding hallucinations shows a significant deficit in the area of definition and measurement of this phenomena. The methods most commonly used are self-report and observation of the client's behavior, such as laughing, talking, mumbling, gesturing, and grimacing to no apparent stimuli. The purpose of the present study was to compare participants' self-report of hallucinations to staff observations of participants' behavior to determine if there was a relationship between them. It was hypothesized that the two reports would correlate significantly, strengthening the case for the validity and usefulness of these approaches as measures of hallucinations. Twenty-eight persons diagnosed with schizophrenia or other major mental illnesses and reporting auditory hallucinations living in a group home participated in the study. Participants reported their symptomology on an hourly basis and these reports were compared to staff reports of 10 possible hallucinatory indicators. Participants were provided with token reinforcement for their participation. Three hundred forty-eight staff and participant reports were correlated using the Pearson Product Moment correlation. The results were nonsignificant at the p $<$.05 level. This indicates that observations made by staff of possible hallucinatory indicators have no reliable relationship to schizophrenics' self-reports of hallucinations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pacific.edu/oai:scholarlycommons.pacific.edu:uop_etds-3683 |
| Date | 01 January 1997 |
| Creators | Bryson, Catherine Anne |
| Publisher | Scholarly Commons |
| Source Sets | University of the Pacific |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations |
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