Hi Everyone
Our names are Selina Whitehead, Clara Strauss and Jo Billings and we are members of a research group based at the University of Surrey.
Our aim is to improve the understanding of the experience of seeing images (e.g. people, animals or objects) that appear real when you are awake but are not visible to others. This experience is sometimes also referred to as “seeing things”, “visions” or “visual hallucinations.” Visual hallucinations are sometimes experienced by people with a diagnosis of Parkinson's as well as people with other diagnosis. For the purpose of this study we will be using the word ‘vision’ to describe the experience of visions/ visual hallucinations. We hope that this will help improve understandings of how people cope with this experience.
What is involved?
Specifically we are looking for people who are aged 18 or over and have experienced visions/visual hallucinations in the past six months and have had at least three episodes of visions/visual hallucinations. Setting this minimum time-frame helps us to measure comparable experiences of other people that have experienced visions/visual hallucinations.
If this is true to you, we would like to ask you to complete a series of short questionnaires. This should take no longer than 25 minutes. The questionnaires will ask you about your experience of visions/visual hallucinations as well as other aspects of your life. Your responses will be used in a project looking at the experience of visions/visual hallucinations and the beliefs attached to these experiences. All responses are entirely anonymous.
The link to the survey is:
http://surveys.fahs.surrey.ac.uk/visual_hallucination_research
We are looking for as many participants as possible to complete this survey, so do feel free to pass this link on to anyone you think will be interested.
This project is being supervised by Dr Jo Billings and Dr Clara Strauss and has been approved by the University of Surrey ethics committee, protocol number: 864-PSY-13 . My email address is: [email protected] please contact me if you have any questions or comments.
Many thanks for your time
Selina Whitehead
Trainee Clinical Psychologist
University of Surrey