Insight and general public attitude on psychotic experiences in Hong Kong

Psychosis has been viewed with vastly different attitudes in different contexts. Medical professionals frequently assume that patients should have adequate insight into their abnormal experience. "Lack" of insight has been regarded as a characteristic feature of schizophrenic psychosis. However, these experiences have frequently been construed from a non-medically related perspective by the general public. We employed a case-vignette approach to study the opinion of a general public sample concerning attribution, intervention needs and concordance with medical professionals towards psychotic experience. Ninety eight healthy Chinese volunteers were recruited. Results showed that public opinion only agreed partly with the conventional medical model. Although most subjects agreed that the experience described in the case-vignette was psychological, they did not relate this to psychiatric treatment. Subjects having past contact with psychiatric patients showed a higher degree of agreement with the medical perspective than subjects without past contact. Potential implications of our results on management and health education are discussed.