Complex Bodily Hallucinatory Experiences Scale (CBHES): Development, structure and psychometric properties.
L'Encephale April 4, 2025 George A Michael, Sara Salgues, Geoffrey Duran
Complex bodily hallucinations are common, with 96.6% of a general population sample of 623 participants reporting at least one. A new short scale assessing four themes—delusional parasitosis, feeling of presence, autoscopic phenomena, and body distortions—shows good internal consistency, 3-month test-retest reliability, and convergent validity. The data best fit a hierarchical model linking the four themes to a higher-order factor tentatively identified as bodily self-consciousness. Combinations of themes were more frequent than isolated reports, each of which occurred in less than 5% of the sample. The scale balances specificity and sensitivity when using the 90th percentile of the total score as a classification criterion, making it suitable for clinical and research use.