title: Relationship between self-focused attention and dissociation in patients with and without auditory hallucinations.
abstract: The purpose of this work was to study the relationship between self-focused attention and dissociative experiences in 4 groups of subjects: patients with a psychotic disorder who suffer from auditory hallucinations, patients with psychoses who have recovered from their hallucinations, patients with psychoses who have never had them, and a fourth nonclinical group. The private self-consciousness scale, revised version by Scheier and Carver, J Appl Soc Psychol. 1985;15:687-699, was used to measure self-focused attention, and the dissociative experience scale (DES-II, Bernstein and Putnam, J Nerv Ment Dis. 1986;174:727-735) was used for dissociation. The results showed that the attention of subjects with hallucinations was more self-focused than the nonclinical group, but did not differentiate significantly from groups of patients without hallucinations. On the other hand, patients with hallucinations and those recovered from them had a higher percentage of dissociative experiences than the rest of the groups in the total DES-II score and in its 3 factors, dissociative amnesia, depersonalization, and absorption. We also found a positive correlation between self-focusing and dissociative experiences in subjects with hallucinations. The depersonalization factor on the DES-II was the only factor predicting auditory hallucinations. The conclusions discuss the relevance of dissociative factors and self-focused attention to understanding the etiology of auditory hallucinations and their contributions to current cognitive models of hallucinations.
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Rehabilitación de Salud Mental, Hospitales Universitarios Virgen del Rocío, Sevilla, Spain. sperona@us.es
authors.forename: Salvador
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Perona-Garcelán
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cuevas-Yust
authors.forename: José M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: García-Montes
authors.forename: Marino
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pérez-Alvarez
authors.forename: Maria Jesús
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Ductor-Recuerda
authors.forename: Rosario
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Salas-Azcona
authors.forename: Maria Teresa
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Gómez-Gómez
authors.forename: Belén
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Martín
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001288:Attention; D003861:Depersonalization / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D004213:Dissociative Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D004532:Ego; D005260:Female; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index