The results of a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry suggest that, with an average lifetime prevalence of ever having an episode at 5.8%, psychotic experiences in the general population are infrequent.

Share on Pinterest Women were found to be more likely to have psychotic experiences than men, with a lifetime prevalence of 6.6% compared with 5% for men.

Because of concerns over psychotic experiences being reported by a sizable minority of people, research is now focusing more closely on determining the true extent people experience hallucinations and delusions within the population.

One recent meta-analysis of 61 studies suggested that the median lifetime prevalence of psychotic episodes is 7.2% – substantially higher than the lifetime morbid risk for psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, which has a reported prevalence of 0.7%.

Previous studies have suggested that psychotic episodes predict a variety of mental disorders, such as mood, substance abuse and psychotic disorders, as well as anxiety, schizophrenia and full psychosis.

Data from the World Health Organization World Mental Health surveys – drawn from 18 countries across North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the South Pacific and Europe – were analyzed by researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia.

The researchers found that 5.8% of the 31,261 adult respondents reported having had a psychotic experience at some point in their lives.

Breaking the psychotic experience down to its component halves, the results also show that the lifetime prevalence of hallucinatory experiences among the participants was 5.2%, and 1.3% for delusional experiences.

Women were found to be more likely to have psychotic experiences than men, with a lifetime prevalence of 6.6% compared with 5%. Individuals in middle-income countries were also more likely to have psychotic episodes, with a lifetime prevalence of 7.2%, compared with high-income countries (6.8%) and low-income countries (1.3%).