Background: Musical hallucinations have been considered a rare manifestation of psychotic states or brain and hearing abnormalities. However, an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) assessment tool refers to musical hallucinations and our preliminary study showed that about one third of OCD patients experienced musical hallucinations.
Aims: To elucidate the lifetime prevalence of musical hallucinations among psychotic and nonpsychotic psychiatric outpatients.
Methods: Lifetime experience of musical hallucinations was examined with a specially designed structured interview in 190 consecutive outpatients with diagnoses of anxiety, affective, and schizophrenia disorders.
Results: Musical hallucinations occurred in more than one fifth of all diagnoses. The prevalence of musical hallucinations was highest in OCD patients (41%). Musical hallucinations were significantly more frequent with more comorbid disorders, and logistic regression revealed that this finding was mainly due to OCD combined with either social phobia or schizophrenia.
Conclusion: Musical hallucinations are more common among psychiatric patients than previously reported and are more suggestive of OCD than of other mental disorders.
Free Access: Please Log In
This content is completely free—but you need to be logged in to read the full article. If you already have an account, please log in below. Otherwise, register for free to unlock instant access.
Please sign in or purchase this PDF for $40.00.