Bell, V;
O'Driscoll, C;
(2018)
The network structure of paranoia in the general population.
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
, 53
(7)
pp. 737-744.
10.1007/s00127-018-1487-0.
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Abstract
PURPOSE: Bebbington and colleagues' influential study on 'the structure of paranoia in the general population' used data from the British National Psychiatric Morbidity Survey and latent variable analysis methods. Network analysis is a relatively new approach in psychopathology research that considers mental disorders to be emergent phenomena from causal interactions among symptoms. This study re-analysed the British National Psychiatric Morbidity Survey data using network analysis to examine the network structure of paranoia in the general population. METHODS: We used a Graphical Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (glasso) method that estimated an optimal network structure based on the Extended Bayesian Information Criterion. Network sub-communities were identified by spinglass and EGA algorithms and centrality metrics were calculated per item and per sub-community. RESULTS: We replicated Bebbington's four component structure of paranoia, identifying 'interpersonal sensitivities', 'mistrust', 'ideas of reference' and 'ideas of persecution' as sub-communities in the network. In line with previous experimental findings, worry was the most central item in the network. However, 'mistrust' and 'ideas of reference' were the most central sub-communities. CONCLUSIONS: Rather than a strict hierarchy, we argue that the structure of paranoia is best thought of as a heterarchy, where the activation of high-centrality nodes and communities is most likely to lead to steady state paranoia. We also highlight the novel methodological approach used by this study: namely, using network analysis to re-examine a population structure of psychopathology previously identified by latent variable approaches.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The network structure of paranoia in the general population |
| Location: | Germany |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s00127-018-1487-0 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-018-1487-0 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author(s) 2018. Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
| Keywords: | Delusion, Epidemiology, Network, Psychosis, Schizophrenia |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Clinical, Edu and Hlth Psychology |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10044034 |
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