Do YOU live in a city? You're more likely to hear voices inside your head due to the stress of urban-living

Living in a city significantly increases the risk of psychotic experiences, such as hearing voices and paranoia, research has shown.

Young people growing up in urban areas were 40 per cent more likely to have had such episodes than their countryside counterparts.

For those living in areas with more crime, a whopping 62 per cent reported psychotic experiences.

Dr Helen Fisher, one of the researchers from King's College, said: 'These findings highlight the importance of early, preventative strategies for reducing psychosis risk and suggests that adolescents living in threatening neighbourhoods within cities should be made a priority.

'If we intervene early enough, for example by offering psychological therapies and support to help them cope better with stressful experiences, we could reduce young people's risk for developing psychosis and other mental health problems further down the line.' 

A team from King’s College London and Duke University analysed 2,000 18-year-olds in major cities in England and Wales.

They ranked participants a levels of ‘urbanicity’ and measured neighbourhood social factors through surveys of over 5,000 immediate neighbours of the participants. Personal experience by violent crime was assessed through interviews with participants.

The researchers discovered that among adolescents living in the largest and most densely populated cities, more than a third (34 per cent) reported psychotic symptoms between the age of 12 and 18.

Participants were classed as having suffered from psychosis if they had reported at least one of 13 experiences, which included hearing voices, believing spies were watching them or their food was being poisoned. 

Just over 21 per cent of adolescents living in more favourable neighbourhoods reported psychotic symptoms.

This meant the rate of psychotic experiences was almost three times greater for young residents in higher crime areas.