Goldstein (88) Flashcards
Aim
To see if there is any significant difference in the age of onset of schizophrenia between the two sexes, and to see if women have a less severe course of the disorder than men.
Participants
90 women and men. All diagnosed with schizophrenia using DSM II on admittance and discharge from psychiatric hospital where they stayed for less than 6 moths. All expected to live with family member and aged between 18 and 45. No organic brain disorder e.g. epilepsy.
Re diagnosis
Re-diagnosed 10 years later using revised version of DSM. Of the original 199, 169 were re-diagnosed, 30 were deemed not be schizophrenic. Of the 169 re-diagnosed, 52 were first-time admissions and 38 had only one previous hospitalization. The remainder were the patients studied.
What was measured?
How well the patients could function was measured – martial status, occupational status, and peer relationships.
Results
The researchers found that schizophrenic women had a significantly lower number of re-hospitalizations, and that they had shorter stays in hospital over the 10 years. Mean no. of stays (men 2.24) (women. 1.12)
Results over 5 year period
The difference in gender was even stronger when looking at a 5-year period, possibly because the severity of schizophrenia does not worsen after 5 years.
Results, differences in premorbid functioning
Differences in premorbid functioning, such as isolation, peer relationships and interests, affected re-hospitalizations.
Conclusion
Gender differences in the course of schizophrenias are present in the early stages of the disorder, with poorer premorbid functioning in men being responsible for a poorer outcome.
Reliability
2 experts who did not know the aim of the study tested reliability of the re-diagnosis; inter-rater reliability of 80%
Type of experiment
Longitudinal study
Generalisability
The sample size was 169 so this could be considered generalizable to all schizophrenics.
Gittleman-Klein and Klein (69)
found men do tend to have poorer premorbid histories than women
Data objectivity
The data is objective and unbiased in terms of the number of hospital stays and length of stays, as it came from an outside agency that accurately recorded these details
Problems with generalizing
There are problems generalizing results, as all the participants returned to their families after hospitalization – may not be the same for schizophrenics who didn’t return to their families.
Age Limit
The age limit was 45 years. 9% of schizophrenic women have their first schizophrenic episode after 45 and have more paranoia, whilst very few men do, so this may have biased the sample in favor of finding the gender differences.
