12-month prevalence of psychotic experiences and their association with clinical outcomes in Hong Kong: an epidemiological and a 2-year follow up studies (Cancel)

Little was known on the relationship between subtypes of PEs and common mental health symptoms and few epidemiological study of PEs in the Chinese population. The current study aims to establish the 12-month prevalence of PEs in a representative sample of community-dwelling Chinese population in Hong Kong and explore relationship of types of PEs and common mental health symptoms. The 12- month prevalence of PEs in Hong Kong was 2.7% with 21.1% had multiple PEs. Three classes of PEs were identified: hallucination, paranoia and mixed. PEs persistent rate at two-year follow-up was 15.1%. Multiple PEs and hallucination class of PEs were associated with higher levels of common mental health symptoms. Multiple PEs was further associated with poorer mental health at 2-year follow-up. Results highlighted the transient and heterogeneous nature of PEs, and that the multiple PEs and hallucination subtypes of PEs may be specific indices of poorer common mental health.