Bradshaw (1998) - Case Study Flashcards
What is significant about this case study?
It shows how scientific research proceeds and established CBT as a treatment
Who was carol?
A 26 year old student with an upper class background in her first year of uni who had no history of psychotic illness
Was carol her real name?
No, it was a psuedonym to protect her identity
How did she know she had schizophrenia?
She began to experience auditory hallucinations and had delusions, she then withdrew from people and acted bizarly
What type of schizophrenia was she diagnosed with?
Undifferentiated type
What was her global assessment functioning score before treatment?
30/100
What anti psychotic drug did she take alongside CBT?
Thorazine but she still couldn’t function independently before the CBT
What is triangulation?
Pooling all data from research methods to look for trends and themes
What was the aim of the case study?
To investigate how CBT can be used to treat a woman with schizophrenia
It was a prospective case study which means
they tracked her progress over 3 years and followed up her progress 6 months after therapy and again after a year
What scales were her sypmtoms measured on?
- Role functioning scale (RFS)
- Global Attainment scale (GAS)
- Hospitalisation
- Global Pathology Index
What is the role functioning scale?
a score for her ability to work, socialise and live independently
What is the global attainment scale?
goals she was able to meet
What is hospitalisation?
The amount of times she was hospitalised
What us the global pathology index?
an 8 point scale measuring symptoms
What was stage 1?
Where she developed a relationship with her therapist by taking walks, they found they both had an interest in softball
How did Carol describe her condition?
“I’m no good, I can’t do anything, I’ll always be this way”
What was stage 2?
Where Carol was taught about CBT and her disorder, they set goals and discovered methods of coping with stress
What was stage 3?
The treatment stage where she learnt to manage stress, had to record her day, build coping strategies and focused on her fears e.g social situations where they challeneged her beliefs
How were her fears of relapse challenged?
She had anxiety and depression over fears of relapse which were challenged by creating a stress thermometer, scheduling activites, planning sleep patterns, exerising and dieting
What impact did the therapy have on Carol herself?
She became more confident of her stability and could talk about the impact of schizophrenia as if gave her low self esteem and made her critical of herself
How did they try and boost her self esteem?
They taught her to identify 3 positive events in her life each day, no matter how minor the event was and she had to think of positive words to describe them and herself
What happened in the ending phase?
She had to develop plans to maintain treatment without the therapist but writing cue cards with coping strategies on
Did Carol improve?
Yes, on all measures and even after a year these were still present
