Evaluation of gender bias in the diagnosis of SZ

Question 1

A03 - Evidence of gender bias?

Answer 1

P - There is evidence of gender bias in diagnosis of SZ.

E - Cotton (2009) research implies women also seem to recover more and suffer loss relapse than males. Ignoring these factors would result in gender bias (beta bias).

E - In clinicions not considering factors in the diagnosis and implications could be determained to the recovery of male patients as they are more likely to relapse. A look of factors and support in their recovery from clinicians can lead to further re-lapse.

L - Shows presence of gender bias.

• Cotton (2009)
• women recover
• gender bias
• beta bias
• male pateints
• re-lapse
• gender bias

Question 2

A03 - Further supporting evidence

Answer 2

P - Evidence that there are gender issues in the diagnosis of SZ comes from Loring and Powell (1988).

E - They randomly selected 290 males and female psychiatricts to read 2 cases. Then asked to offer their judgment on these indivdiuals using standard diagnostic criteria. When patients described as male or no info was about their gender, 56% gave a diagnostic of SZ. However when the patients were described as females, only 20% diagnosed. And this gender bias was less prominent in female psychiatrics.

E - This research shows how gender bias in diagnosis is common and how their are issues with diagnosing people based on gender (less chance of diagnostic).

• Loring and Powell (1988)
• 290 males and female psychiatrics
• 2 cases
• male or no info - 56%
• female - 20%

Question 3

A03 - Androcentric findings

Answer 3

P - There is research to suggest that the findings and explanations of SZ is seen as Androcentric.

E - Nasser et al (2002) found that much of the early research into SZ only used male subjects.

E - Thus, a lot of the criteria of the diangosis of SZ is biassed towards men and the content used may be innappropiate for women.

L - This shows how the validity of the diagnosis of SZ levels validity towards women (gender bias) and fails to generalise towards the rest of the target population.

• Androcentric
• Nassaer et al (2002)
• biassed towards men
• fails to generalise