Evolution of Religious Topics in Schizophrenia in 80 Years Period

Environment and culture are shown to be an important factor influencing characteristics of psychotic symptoms. Content of hallucinations and delusions is a projection of internal processes on external world. Religion plays a central role to lives of many people, but in schizophrenia religious experience and spirituality is confounded by psychotic symptoms. The aim of this study was to find how content of hallucinations and delusions interact with cultural conditions, that were changing over the decades.

100 of case histories from 2012 were randomly selected. From the medical record, content of hallucinations and delusion was extracted and categorized. Data from 2012 was compared with previous study by the authors, obtaining perspective of 80 years of history in the one hospital.

Religious content of delusions and hallucinations appeared in 26% of patients. Diversity of the religious and spiritual themes in schizophrenia has been gradually decreasing. Many minor religious entities and figures such as "saints" and "angels" disappeared in 2012. Although, occurrence of contact with God and other religious figures was similar as in previous years, number of "visions" abruptly decreased. All of the religious content was culture-specific.

Religious topics express general plasticity over a time, following cultural changes in society.