Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Auditory Verbal Hallucinations - What Should it be Doing and How Will We Know When that's Happened?

精神病的核心特征之一是AVH，也被称为声音听觉体验。AVH最好被描述为在没有刺激物（即说话者）的情况下听到声音的经历，并且经常与精神病联系在一起。与精神病相关的经历对个人来说可能是痛苦的，导致严重的功能障碍。由于失业率和医院费用的增加，这些特点也可能给社会带来经济负担。英国国家健康与护理卓越研究所（NICE）推荐CBT治疗精神病。尽管有证据表明CBT在治疗精神病的阳性症状（如幻觉）方面是有效的，但在如何最好地衡量CBT治疗AVH的结果方面尚无一致意见。以前的研究已经使用评估症状严重程度的方法来检查CBT的结果。然而，这些措施并不能真正反映CBT理论目标的情绪过程。这强调了对如何最好地衡量CBT效果达成共识的必要性。通过定性研究，我们可以确定服务使用者和临床医生对AVH CBT结果测量的看法，帮助我们了解我们应该测量什么。这个研究项目可以填补现有文献的空白，从而有可能对现有文献做出贡献。

One of the core feature of psychosis is AVH, otherwise known as voice hearing experiences. AVH can best be described as the experience of hearing voices in the absence a stimulus (that is a speaker) and have often been linked to psychosis. The experiences associated with psychosis can be distressing for an individual, leading to significant impairments in functioning. These features can also have an economic burden on the society as a result of increased unemployment and hospital costs. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)recommends CBT in the UK for the treatment of psychosis. Despite evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of CBT in treating positive symptoms (e.g. hallucinations) in psychosis, there is no agreement in terms of how to best measure outcomes of CBT for AVH. Previous research studies, have used measures assessing symptom severity to examine outcomes of CBT. These measures however do not truly reflect the emotional processes CBT theoretically targets. This emphasises the need for a consensus on how best to measure outcomes of CBT. Through qualitative research, we can identify service users' and clinicians' views on outcome measures of CBT for AVH, helping us understand what exactly we should be measuring. This research project can potentially contribute to the existing literature by filling in the gaps.