Relationship between positive symptoms and anxiety sensitivity in psychosis: A research centered on the symptom

Abstract

Introduction

Researching from a symptom approach avoids possible spurious associations, given the co-occurrence of symptoms in a disorder (Costello, 1992). Here, we deepen the evidenced relationships among anxiety, delusions and hallucinations.

Objectives

We intended to assess differences in Anxiety Sensitivity dimensions between patients with psychosis depending on presence/absence of hallucinations and/or delusions.

Methods/ participants

49 patients with DSM psychosis diagnosis (42 men and 7 women; mean age: 40), who attended a Mental Health Rehabilitation Service in 2008, of whom 7 only deluded, 6 only hallucinated, 11 deluded-hallucinated and the remaining 25 neither hallucinated nor deluded.

Design, materials and procedure

A Cross-sectional design (one measurement) for a co-relational method of comparison between groups.

We used the Spanish validated Anxiety Sensitivity lndex-3 -ASI 3- (Sandín et al., 2007), a 18-item Likert self-report that assesses fears of anxious symptoms. It presents a hierarchical structure (a general factor and three subscales -Physical, Cognitive and Social Concerns-). It's also used the first and third items (delusions and hallucinatory behaviour) of The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale -PANSS- (Kay, Opler and Lindenmayer, 1988) to detect positive symptoms.

Results

All analysis were accepted at p < .05. Patients only hallucinators showed a higher anxiety sensitivity in Social Subscale than non-hallucinative/non-delusional patients; the former presented lower punctuations in ASI-total and ASI-cognitive than patients with hallucinations and delusions. The latter showed a higher anxiety sensitivity in Cognitive Subscale than patients who only deluded.

Conclusions

It's hypothetized that both delusional and hallucinative activity is necessary for emergence of cognitive anxiety sensitivity.