Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Senior Researcher Martin Køster Rimvall, Region Zealand and Capital Region of Denmark,
- Second opponent: Professor Mary Cannon, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ireland
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor Elfrida Hartveit Kvarstein, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Emeritus Pål Zeiner, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Ida Elken Sønderby, University of Oslo
Summary
Psychosis – defined by hallucinations and delusions, along with emotional, behavioural, and cognitive issues – is theorised to exist on a spectrum: from frank psychotic episodes with a complete break from reality to mild delusions or hallucinations that do not cause distress or impairment. While only around 3% of the population ever develop a psychotic episode, far more individuals experience milder, transient or non-distressing psychotic symptoms. These are often referred to as psychotic experiences.
Psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, typically develop in late adolescence or early adulthood and take a heavy toll on the affected individuals and their loved ones. Early identification with appropriate treatment is important to improve quality of life and prognosis. Still, early psychosis intervention services only capture a small fraction of cases, suggesting that an updated screening approach is needed.
For practical implementation, we need to find the most parsimonious and effective approach for initial risk identification: the screening tool should be easy to use, and data should be easy to collect. Self-report questionnaires of psychotic experiences offer a relatively simple and cost-effective method for screening large samples.
However, there are key challenges and sources of bias. Societal shifts – for instance, as the result of the digital revolution or the COVID-19 pandemic – may impact responses to questions about unusual experiences, introducing bias to observed group differences and relationships. Consequently, before implementing tools for psychosis screening, it is vital to ensure that our measures are valid and reliable across contexts of interest.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.