Classification and Diagnosis

Question 1

When is diagnosis more likely to occur, and why?

Answer 1

Late teens (16-25), greater exposure to environmental factors (drugs/alcohol) triggering onset of schizophrenia

Question 2

Define positive symptoms

Answer 2

Additionally atributing to the experience of a neurotypical person

Question 3

What are positive symptoms?

Answer 3

Reflects an excess or distortion of ‘normal symptoms’, i.e. hearing internal voices or believing that people can read their minds, control their thoughts or plot to harm them causing paranoia and distress, leading to speech and behaviour being disorganised or frightening

Question 4

What are delusions?

Answer 4

False beliefs that are firmly held despite being completely illogical, or for which there is no evidence

Question 5

Name three types of delusion

Answer 5

Persecution, grandeur and control

Question 6

Explain delusions of persecution

Answer 6

Belief that others want to harm, threaten or manipulate them, that they are being spied on or that nasty rumours are being spread about them, or that people are plotting to kill them

Question 7

Explain delusions of grandeur

Answer 7

Idea that you are an important, god-like individual and have extraordinary powers, i.e. Christ

Question 8

Explain delusions of control

Answer 8

Individuals believe they are under the control of an alience force that has invaded their mind or body, i.e. presence of spirits of implanted radio transmitter

Question 9

What are the limitations to delusions?

Answer 9

• Cannot be empirically tested for and challenged, therefore difficult to combat
• Distorts what is acceptable and what is not in terms of beliefs

Question 10

What are hallucinations?

Answer 10

Disturbances in perception rather than disturbances in thought, false perceptions that have no basis in reality, i.e. auditory (hearing voices (familiar or unfamiliar)), but can include smell, touch and sight

Question 11

What is present in signficant minorities?

Answer 11

‘Devil and angel voices’, persceptions causing the juggling of different commands leadinging to feelings of overwhelm

Question 12

What can hallucinations lead to?

Answer 12

• More likely to be dangers to themselves than members of society
• No. of murders more likely to occur in the hands of schizophrenic Latin American men

Question 13

Define negative symptoms

Answer 13

Decline in functioning, reflecting a loss of ‘normal function’

Question 14

What is the result of negative symptoms?

Answer 14

• Unable to work at a job requiring the same level of skill or concentration as the job they held before they became ill, or lose all ability to withstand stress of working
• Illness can affect ability to function at home i.e. unable to complete chores, raise children or maintain active social life

Question 15

What is one factor that may lead to inability to function?

Answer 15

Energy extensiveness in regards of suffering with positive symptoms

Question 16

What is speech poverty?

Answer 16

Inability to speak properly, characterised by lack of ability to produce fluent words; this is thought to reflect slowing or blocked thoughts, which can manifest itself as short and empty replies to questions

Question 17

What is avolition?

Answer 17

Reduction, difficulty or inability to start and continue with goal-directed behaviour, often mistaken for apparent disinterest

Question 18

What study found over 80% of main characters in more than 40 films with a schizophrenia diagnosis displayed as violent and a third engaging in homicidal behaviour?

Answer 18

Owen (2012)

Question 19

Why are Black Caribbeans more likely to be diagnosed than White?

Answer 19

Elevated race when accounting for culture bias due to consumption of cannabis acting as an environmental triggers towards a genetic disposition of schizophrenia

Question 20

Sean Rigg (2008)

Answer 20

Died from a cardiac arrest in custody of Brixton police due to stigmatised label of schizoprenia, assumed to be agressive and violent