goldstein (1988)

Question 1

what were 3 the aims of Goldstein’s study

Answer 1

1- to see if there are gender differences with regard to the re-hospitalisation of people with sz and to the length of hospital stays
2- to consider social factors, mainly factors present before diagnosis to see if they had an impact on the course of the disorder with regard to gender
3- to look at the DSM ll and DSM lll diagnosis to see if there were differences and to test the DSM for reliability and validity

Question 2

A01 - sample

Answer 2

the original sample consisted of 199 patients who were male and female, all diagnosed with sz with the DSM ll and were between ages 18 to 45
90 patients were followed for 10 years in the final study

Question 3

A01 - procedure

Answer 3

re-diagnosed 199 patients with the DSM lll found 169 still had sz, out of those re-diagnosed with sz by Goldstein and 2 other experts90 were chosen and then followed for 10 years

Question 4

A01- how was data collected

Answer 4

• length of stay and re-hospitalisations was collected by hospital records
• symptoms were collected through interviews using specially developed questions regarding symptoms e.g. paranoia and anxiety
• premorbid functioning was measured using a questionnaire that was rated on a 6-point scale relating to things such as peer relationships and interests they had when they were younger

Question 5

A01- what were the results of Goldstein (1988)

Answer 5

• men had a mean of 2.24 re-hospitalisations over the 10 years and women had a mean of 1.12
• men had a mean of 418 days in a hospital over the 10 years and women had a mean of 207 days
• it was found that 13% of gender effect on re-hospitalisations was due to premorbid functioning but only 4.3% was due to social functioning
• it was found that 11.3% of gender effect on length of stay was due to social functioning and only 4.2% was due to premorbid functioning

Question 6

A01- what did Goldstein conclude

Answer 6

• males with schizophrenia had a more severe experience than women with schizophrenia
• DSM lll was a reliable tool for diagnosing schizophrenia
• premorbid functioning and social functioning are important factors in the development of schizophrenia

Question 7

A03- sample

Answer 7

• high in generalisability as the study used both men and women
• low in generalisability as the study didn’t include anyone over the age of 45, even though 9% of women diagnosed with schizophrenia are over the age of 45, and women on average get diagnosed later then men due to their ability to hide symptoms better, they also get their first schizophrenic episode 10 years after men

Question 8

A03-procedure

Answer 8

• high in inter-rater reliability as Goldstein and 2 other experts who were blind to the diagnosis conducted the interviews regarding the re-diagnosis of patients - they found they had a Kappa rating of 0.8 agreement and only disagreed on one case
• high in validity due to a matched pairs design e.g. matched on marital status, education, age, religion and similar culture background

Question 9

A03-results

Answer 9

• high in test re-test reliability as Angermeyer (1987) confirmed Goldstein’s findings that pre morbid functioning was important in predicting the severity of the disorder
• highly objective data as they used hospital records to gain quantitative data
• high in validity as both primary and secondary data is used e.g. through hospital records and interviews and questionnaires, showing triangulation

Question 10

A03-conclusion

Answer 10

• positive applications for understanding gender differences prognosis of schizophrenia, may imply that men and women experience schizophrenia differently and therefore should have different treatment
• informs us about the reliability of the DSM in diagnosing schizophrenia giving the society more trust in diagnosis on a whole