Epidemiological, Clinical, and Therapeutic Aspects of Chronic Hallucinatory Psychoses in Senegal

A purely French entity, chronic hallucinatory psychosis (CHP) is characterized by chronic, systematized, non- dissociative delirium with no course-of-thought disorders or deficits. The study describes the prevalence and  sociodemographic, clinical, and therapeutic characteristics of patients with chronic hallucinatory psychosis treated as outpatients in the psychiatry department of the Fann National University Hospital Center. Methods: The retrospective, cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted over five years, from January 2010 to December 31, 2014, in the outpatient unit of the psychiatry and medical psychology department of the Fann National University Hospital in Dakar. Our study population consisted of 86 cases of CPH out of 6502 patients, i.e. 1.32%. The mean age was 50.2 years, and women were the most common (74.4%). More than a quarter of patients (36%) were married. Almost all patients (72.1%) were referred by family or friends. Insomnia was the most common reason for consultation (69.8%), followed by incoherent speech (46.5%) and auditory-verbal hallucinations (37.2%). The signs found on examination were very varied; the most important were auditory-verbal hallucinations (80%), followed by ideas of persecution (62.8%), mental automatism (45.3%), and insomnia (38.4%). All patients were treated with neuroleptics (100%), often in combination with other psychotropic drugs, notably anxiolytics (52.3%), hypnotics (18.6%), and antidepressants (10.5%). Conclusion: The results of our study show a similarity with the data in the literature on the same subject. Despite its absence from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM V), and the International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition (ICD 10), chronic hallucinatory psychosis is a psychiatric condition that continues to attract the attention of French-speaking psychiatrists. The latter recognize this pathology as an entity for diagnosis and treatment and continue using it daily. Hence, there is a need for a more precise definition and more in-depth studies to ensure that it is considered in international classifications of mental illnesses.