Classification of Schizophrenia Flashcards
What are Positive symptoms?
Additional experiences gained that are beyond those of ordinary existence from having schizophrenia.
What are negative symptoms?
Atypical experiences that represent a loss of usual experience from having schizophrenia (such as clear thinking)
Outline positive symptoms and explain them?
Hallucinations- False perceptions that can affect the different sense. For example they can be auditory (hearing voices), visual (seeing people), tactile (Feelings things) or even olfactory(smelling things).
Delusions- Bizarre beliefs that a person believes are real. In schizophrenia these beliefs can be paranoid in nature or can be self directed and involve an inflated sense of power.
Outline negative symptoms and explain them?
Speech and poverty: When a person loses their ability to speak fluently and is believed to occur due to slowing or blocked thoughts
Avolition: A reduction the ability to initiate in goal directed behaviours. For example sitting at home all day without anything to do
Affective flattening-A reduction in the ability to express a range of emotional expressions such as eye contact, tone of voice, and facial expressions
Anhedonia- A lack of interest in pleasurable or daily activities
What main classification systems do we have to diagnose schizophrenia and what does the more common one require to diagnose schizophrenia.
-ICD 10 and DSM 5
DSM-5:
-Criterion A symptoms: delusions, hallucinations disorganised speech, catatonic behaviour, negative behaviour. they must display two or more of theses symptoms
-Criterion B: A person must show a social or occupational dysfunction in one or more major areas of functioning such as work, relationships and self care
Criterion C: Signs of disturbance for at least 6 months involving one month of symptoms from criterion A being displayed.
What is catatonic behaviour?
Abnormal motor activity where a person will experience a loss in motor skills or hyperactive motor activity
reliability AO1 referring to when discussing schizophrenia?
- Diagnostic reliability means a diagnosis of schizophrenia must be repeatable so psychiatrists must be able to reach the same conclusion on diagnosis at two different times which can be tested through test retest reliability. Research has been conducted by Wilks which involved giving schizophrenics two different forms of an RBANS test and found that there was a a test retest correlation coefficient of +0.85 which is high. RBANS was given to them as it measures the degree of neuropsychological impairment.
- It can also refer to whether clinicians reach the same conclusion on diagnosis. This can be tested through inter-rather reliability. DSM 3 was said to fix the issue of inter rather reliability.
- However reliability counts for nothing unless the diagnostic system is valid.
AO1 validity referring to schizophrenia
- Validity refers to the extent to which classification is a true measure of a discrete psychological disorder.
- Co morbidity refers to the extent two mental disorders occur at the same time. Co morbidity affects the validity of the DSM-5 as a diagnostic system for schizophrenia, as comorbidity is common in schizophrenic patients and it makes it difficult to determine which disorder to diagnose
- There is also an issue of validity with symptom overlap. Schizophrenic symptoms are found in other mental disorders as well, making it hard for psychiatrists to identify what mental disorder they should diagnose.
Outline Rosenhan’s study
Aim: to investigate the validity of the diagnosis of schizophrenia
Method: Rosenhan conducted a study with a volunteer sample, he trained them to act as schizophrenics. He then went to a range of psychiatric wards to see if they would be admitted to the wards and be diagnosed with schizophrenia. The volunteers would display many schizophrenic symptoms and say they heard voices saying ‘hallow, empty thud’. Once admitted to the psychiatric ward they would act normal again and they wouldn’t release them until eight weeks later as they still believed they were schizophrenics.
conclusion: The diagnostic system used to diagnose schizophrenia is invalid as it diagnosed people without schizophrenia as schizophrenic.
Outline research that displays cultural bias affecting the reliability of the diagnostic system for schizophrenia
P: Research evidence suggests the diagnosis of schizophrenia could be cultural bias.
E:134 US and 194 British psychiatrists were given a description of a patient. 69% of the US psychologists diagnosed schizophrenia but only 2% of the British ones gave the same diagnosis.
L: The inability of the psychologists from different cultures being able to diagnose schizophrenia calls into question the reliability of the diagnosis because as it suggests the patients can display schizophrenic symptoms but still receive different diagnosis depending on the culture your in.
Outline how gender bias affects the validity of the diagnosis for schizophrenia?
P: Research from Loring and Powell suggests the diagnosis for schizophrenia is gender bias
E: They conducted a study which involved 290 male and female psychiatrists, they read two cases of patient behaviour. They were then asked to judge the persons behaviour using a standard schizophrenia criteria. When patients were described as male 56% of the psychiatrists diagnosed the patients as being schizophrenic however when they were described as female only 20% of them would diagnose the patient with schizophrenia.
L: Therefore this suggests that gender does seem to influence the diagnosis of schizophrenia, which questions the validity of the diagnostic system and classification system of schizophrenia.
Outline AO3 for validity and reliability schizophrenia
- wilks
- culture bias/reliability
- gender bias/validity
- Rosenhan/Validity
