Exploring psychotic experiences in the context of multidimensional psychopathology: a longitudinal community-based approach

Hearing voices, seeing things that others don’t, subtle suspicion, odd or magical beliefs etc. These psychotic experiences are far more common than schizophrenia and other psychotic illness in communities. In this thesis, these experiences were assessed at households of a general population (4011 individuals). Furthermore, data on socio-environmental risk factors for mental health problems were collected and blood sampling was made to assess genetic factors. The population is representative of the city Izmir, which is one of the major cities in Europe and Middle East, with approxiamately 4 million residents. The population is followed up for 6 years to investigate the questions: Are individuals with these experiences going to have mental problems on the long run? If yes, which mental disorders? Are they associated with subsequent schizophrenia and other psychotic illness, depression and other mood disorders ? Which genetic factors and social adversities are associated with these experiences, also with subsequent outcomes of these experiences?