Some psychiatric specialists have employed symptom management strategies with patients with auditory hallucinations and have unanimously reported that the strategies were effective in reducing the frequency of auditory hallucinations (Trygstad et al. 2002, Buccheri et al. 2007, Kanungpairn et al. 2007) and anxiety and depressive symptoms (Trygstad et al. 2002). Although these studies obtained excellent results, the research either adopted a one-group pretest–posttest design (Trygstad et al. 2002, Buccheri et al. 2004, 2007) or used a small sample size (Kanungpairn et al. 2007). The outcome indicators for symptom management strategies or other intervention measurements can be roughly categorized into: (a) characteristics directly related to the auditory hallucinations, such as the frequency and loudness of the voices and a person’s belief in the perceived voices (Trygstad et al. 2002, McLeod et al. 2007); and (b) problems caused by the auditory hallucinations, such as depression, anxiety, distress and impaired social functions (Trygstad et al. 2002, Wykes et al. 2005, McLeod et al. 2007). In addition to the effects of the auditory hallucinatory symptom management (AHSM) programme on the severity of the auditory hallucinations induced by schizophrenia, this study explored the effectiveness of the programme on reducing emotional symptoms.