12/04/2012
Fifth Of School Children Hear Voices In Their Heads
A startling amount of children have admitted to 'hearing voices' in their heads.
According to research carried out by the British Journal of Psychiatry over 20% of children from Ireland, aged between 11 and 13 have reported hearing voices. This is a sign some experts believe is a significant risk factor in mental illness.
Nearly 2,500 children, aged between 11 and 16, were assessed four times for the study, funded by the Health Research Board (HRB).
Researchers discovered auditory hallucination has an impact on 21% to 23% of children aged between 11 and 13 in Ireland.
More than half of those who heard voices - 57% - were also found to have a psychiatric disorder following clinical assessment.
Where most of the auditory hallucinations subside with time children who continue to hear voices could be at risk of mental illness or behavioural disorders, it is claimed.
Lead researcher Dr Ian Kelleher, from the Department of Psychiatry at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RSCI), said: ''We found that auditory hallucinations were common even in children as young as 11 years old. Auditory hallucinations can vary from hearing an isolated sentence now and then, to hearing 'conversations' between two or more people lasting for a several minutes.
''It may present itself like screaming or shouting, and other times it could sound like whispers or murmurs. It varies greatly from child to child, and frequency can be once a month to once every day.
''For many children, these experiences appear to represent a 'blip' on the radar that does not turn out to signify any underlying or undiagnosed problem. However, for the other children, these symptoms turned out to be a warning sign of serious underlying psychiatric illness, including clinical depression and behavioural disorders, like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
''Some older children with auditory hallucinations had two or more disorders. This finding is important because if a child reports auditory hallucinations it should prompt their treating doctor to consider that the child may have more than one diagnosis.''
The findings are published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
(LB)
According to research carried out by the British Journal of Psychiatry over 20% of children from Ireland, aged between 11 and 13 have reported hearing voices. This is a sign some experts believe is a significant risk factor in mental illness.
Nearly 2,500 children, aged between 11 and 16, were assessed four times for the study, funded by the Health Research Board (HRB).
Researchers discovered auditory hallucination has an impact on 21% to 23% of children aged between 11 and 13 in Ireland.
More than half of those who heard voices - 57% - were also found to have a psychiatric disorder following clinical assessment.
Where most of the auditory hallucinations subside with time children who continue to hear voices could be at risk of mental illness or behavioural disorders, it is claimed.
Lead researcher Dr Ian Kelleher, from the Department of Psychiatry at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RSCI), said: ''We found that auditory hallucinations were common even in children as young as 11 years old. Auditory hallucinations can vary from hearing an isolated sentence now and then, to hearing 'conversations' between two or more people lasting for a several minutes.
''It may present itself like screaming or shouting, and other times it could sound like whispers or murmurs. It varies greatly from child to child, and frequency can be once a month to once every day.
''For many children, these experiences appear to represent a 'blip' on the radar that does not turn out to signify any underlying or undiagnosed problem. However, for the other children, these symptoms turned out to be a warning sign of serious underlying psychiatric illness, including clinical depression and behavioural disorders, like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
''Some older children with auditory hallucinations had two or more disorders. This finding is important because if a child reports auditory hallucinations it should prompt their treating doctor to consider that the child may have more than one diagnosis.''
The findings are published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
(LB)
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