Hallucinations in Chronic Mental Illness-A Clinical Study of Iraqi Patients

Hallucination as a sensory perception without external stimulation of the relevant sensory organ. Hallucinations in schizophrenia are neither mental image nor true perception. Chronic mental illness is residual symptoms beyond 2 years of initial recognition. The aim of current study was to study the frequency of hallucinations of all modalities and to compare Schneider's first rank hallucinations with other hallucinatory modalities in same group of patients and to compare the results of present work with result from studies done in other cultures.

This is cohort study, each patient was clinically interviewed. The diagnosis was made according to the criteria of DSM-IV-TR through the use of the national institute of mental health diagnosis interview schedule (NIMH-DIS).

The results of this study were compared to others and found to be relatively comparable. The types of Hallucinations experienced by patients were 72(86.15%) of patients had auditory type, 30(43.07%) had visual, the Schneider's first rank hallucinations were found in 14(21.04%) patients. The other types of hallucination as tactile and olfactory were rare.