One study used the Psychotic Symptom Assessment Scale (PSAS) to examine psychosis in 43 MA and 42 cocaine dependent persons who had no DSM-IV axis I diagnoses other than nicotine, MA, or cocaine dependence (Mahoney et al., 2008). Substantial percentages of the MA-users reported symptoms of paranoia (64% of males and 67% of females) and 40% of males and 47% of females reported that they had experienced hallucinations such as “imagining someone called your name.” In Sommers' study of 106 MA abusers described earlier, 38% reported a lifetime history of hallucinations and 63% reported a history of paranoia (Sommers et al., 2006). Leamon et al. assessed MA-associated paranoia in 274 MA dependent subjects, of whom 45% experienced their first episode of paranoia while using MA (Leamon et al., 2010). Another recent study of 46 MA abusers also observed trends for more symptoms of psychosis in MA users than in non-users as measured by the Symptom Checklist-90 (Nakama et al., 2008).
