Does the Phenomenology of Auditory Hallucinations Differ Across Patients Having Severe Mental Illness With and Without Hearing Impairment?

Abstract

We compared the experience of auditory hallucinations, in persons who have normal (HN; N = 20), or impaired hearing (HI; N = 20), while experiencing psychoses. We assessed this experience across 42 domains and observed that irrespective of the hearing status, patients most often heard voices mainly in the language that they had learnt first (χ2 = 5.584; P = .018). However, a few experienced hallucinations in languages they “did not know” (3/20; 15%). The voices were most often attributed to both males and females (35/40; 87.5%). Those with hearing impairment heard voices closer to their ears, a hubbub of voices of crowds talking to them, and “as if” stuck or repetitive; often in the hearing-impaired ear. The hearing-impaired subjects also reported hearing nonverbal auditory hallucinations more frequently (χ2 = 17.625; P = .001), and the voices lacked emotional salience (χ2 = 4.055; P = .044). In contrast, the hallucinations were experienced in elaborate detail by the HN (20/20), while those with HI often heard only simple sentences (14/20, P = 0.05). The intensity of the hallucinatory voices remained the same on closing the affected ear or both of the ears in the HI group as compared to the HN group. Interestingly, the use of hearing aids attenuated the intensity of the hallucinations (6/7; 85%) in those with HI.