Classic: Rosenhan Flashcards
What were the aims of Rosenhan?
To provide evidence that disorders lie with the person making the diagnosis.
To investigate the treatment of patients by staff.
Describe the initial procedure of Rosenhan.
8 Pseudopatients presented themselves at a hospital complaining of the same symptom. If asked they gave truthful information and they said they were no longer hearing voices.
Once admitted they behaved normally and kept records of observations.
What were the symptoms the pseudo patients gave to the hospitals?
Hearing a same-sex voice saying empty thud and hollow.
How many hospital was the investigation conducted at?
12 hospitals in five states. Varying locations and 1 was private.
What was the procedure of the follow up study?
Rosenhan agreed to send pseudo patients to more hospitals after they claimed this would not happen to them. Staff were told to rate every patient in a scale of 1-10 (1= patient is fake)
What was Rosenhan’s mini experiment?
Pseudo patients approached a staff member in the hospital and asked a question about their release.
What were the findings of Rosenhan’s initial study?
All pseudo patients were admitted, 7 diagnosed with schizophrenia 1 with bipolar disorder.
Length of hospitalisation ranged from 7 to 52 days with an average of 19 days.
What were the findings of Rosenhan’s follow up study?
Nurses reported that 41 were fake.
Psychiatrists reported 23 were fake.
What were the findings of the mini experiment?
Only 4% received an answer from a psychiatrist and 0.5% from a nurse.
What was the conclusion of Rosenhan’s investigation?
We cannot distinguish the same from the infant in psychiatric hospitals.
The hospitals create an environment of depersonalisation and segregation.
How does Rosenhan believe his investigation explains over-diagnosis of mental illness?
He believed clinicians avoided calling a sick person healthy.
Evaluate the generalisability of Rosenhan.
+Used a range of psychiatric hospitals some private some public.
-12 hospitals is still a small sample and a few bad apples may skew the results.
Evaluate the reliability of Rosenhan.
+Rosenhan trained his pseudo patients to follow a standardised procedure.
-Not all of them followed it. Eg: graduate student asked his wife to bring his homework, revealing he was a psychiatrist.
Evaluate the application of Rosenhan.
Caused psychiatric hospitals to review their admissions process. Started a movement away from the dependency of drug treatments and to change environments so patients receive a more personable and humane treatment.
Evaluate the validity of Rosenhan.
-Low ecological validity
Psychiatrist don’t expect to be deceived by patients trying to enter a mental facility.
