Classification of Mental Disorders Flashcards
What are the usual rules for a symptoms to compound into a mental disorder?
A minimum number of symptoms
Within a certain timeframe
Symptoms typically require a change from usual functioning / an impact on daily life
How do clinical diagnoses help health professionals?
To facilitate clinical assessment
To aid communication
To guide treatment decisions
To help organise mental health services
To facilitate research
How do clinical diagnoses help patients?
Gives a name to difficulties
Allows individuals to look it up online
Offers meaning, understanding, relief and explanation
Facilitates communication with and understanding from others
Provides access to care and support (e.g. benefits)
Facilitates the process of finding and forming peer/carer support groups
What did Rosenhan’s (1973) experiment show
sane in insane places study
Reliability in diagnosis
To what extent experts can agree about who has what diagnosis?
What tests the validity of diagnostic systems?
To what extent is the diagnostic system useful for the purpose intended?
How can you tell if a diagnosis is accurate?
Can the diagnosis predict the course and outcome of illness and response to treatment?
What are the inter-rate reliability goals for diagnosis on mental disorders?
> 0.8 perfect/miraculous
0.6-0.8 excellent
0.4-0.6 realistic goal
0.2-0.4 acceptable
Hanlon et al (2018) found what outcome when looking at if receiving a diagnosis helped with patient’s treatment?
Receiving a specific diagnosis had little impact on “real-life functioning” of participants. However, the presence and severity of the symptoms was more important/relevant to participants.
How can you test construct validity in relation to diagnosis?
Do the symptoms of specific psychiatric diagnoses correlate with each other?
Does diagnosis predict treatment and outcome success?
D: comorbidity
meeting the criteria for more than one diagnosis
What problem does the comorbidity phenomenon cause?
It raises significant questions about the underlying structure & assumptions of classification
What did Johnstone et al. (1986) find in relation to treatments for depression & schizophrenia?
Drug response was symptom-specific but not diagnosis-specific
What areas do different services focus on for poeple to qualify for mental health care?
Diagnosis e.g. eating disorders, learning difficulties
Specific needs/severity (largest category)
Specific problems that are non-diagnostic (eg, trauma, stress, alcohol and drug misuse etc)
Specific life circumstances (eg homelessness/military)
What is the power threat meaning framework?
Framework that focuses on people’s life experiences and how they influenced and affected them to try and get to the route cause of their problems. Through the 4 questions:
• What has happened to you?
• How did it affect you?
• What sense did you make of it?
• What did you have to do to survive?
