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Why are visions important to explore?
At least one in three people with psychosis experience distressing visual hallucinations, also known as visions – seeing things that others cannot. When visions occur, they can have a detrimental impact on people’s lives, such as more frequent and prolonged hospital admissions, and greater likelihood of suicide. Despite these, visions are poorly understood and there are no effective treatments for these.
However, our previous research and close work with people who see visions be very difficult to talk about and they are not often explored in peoples care within mental health services. We really want to change this and make better treatments for people.
To do this, we must first listen and learn from people’s experiences of visions. So we are looking for 900 people with visions and psychosis to take part our study, VISION-QUEST.
What is VISION-QUEST exploring?
Our previous research has found that the way in which people make sense of their visions are one of the keys factors driving distress. For example, when people thought visions were negative or threatening, they found them to be more distressing and this had a bigger impact on their lives. The next step is therefore to explore this on a larger scale to understand more about people’s appraisals of their visions. Then this can be used to validate a scale of visions appraisals and develop targeted treatments for these.
To do so, this study will develop a questionnaire focused on people’s beliefs about visions. It will also explore the relationships between these appraisals and other difficulties which people may experience, such as poor sleep or high worry.
By developing a new measure and our knowledge of causal mechanisms of visions, it will be the next important steps to developing better treatments for these.
What is a vision?
Visions (also known as visual hallucinations) are the experience of seeing something that others can’t. We are still learning about visions and therefore we are really keen to hear about all types of these experiences: different content, frequencies, duration, and levels of distress. This way we can capture a good representation of what visions are really like for people.
Who can take part?
We are looking for people:
· - With a non-affective psychosis diagnosis such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, psychosis disorder not otherwise specified, delusional disorder, schizotypal disorder, first episode psychosis.
· - Currently seeing visions (within the last 4 weeks).
· - Currently receiving care from an NHS mental health team (such as Early Intervention in Psychosis teams, Community Mental Health Teams, Inpatient wards).
· - Aged 16 to 65.
What does taking part involve?
It would involve completing a questionnaire pack, which explores a range of experiences such as visions, sleep, worry, and mental imagery. It takes about an hour to complete. You can do this with support from research staff in your trust or independently online.
To do so, this study will develop a questionnaire focused on people’s beliefs about visions. It will also explore the relationships between these appraisals and other difficulties which people may experience, such as poor sleep or high worry.
By developing a new measure and our knowledge of causal mechanisms of visions, it will be the next important steps to developing better treatments for these.
How do I take part?
We would love to hear from you, if you are interested in taking part. Please click here to find out if your trust is currently open to recruitment. If so, you can get in touch with them directly. They will need to check that you are able to take part, and if so, they will talk you through the next steps.
If you aren’t sure if you are eligible, it is still worth while getting in touch as the research team will be able to discuss this with you further.
Contacting the research team to hear more does not mean that you have to take part. The researchers will arrange a time to go through the study in more detail with you. During which you will have chance to ask questions. You can take your time to think about whether you would like to take part or not. Regardless of you decide to take part or not will not impact on the care that you receive through your clinical care team – that will remain the same.
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