mental health; topic 1 - Rosenhan

Question 1

What is the AIM of study ONE?

Answer 1

to investigate whether normal, sane individuals would be admitted to psychiatric hospitals

Question 2

what is the SAMPLE in study ONE?

Answer 2

• EIGHT pseudopatients
• THREE were female, FIVE were male
• they all had a variety of professions - but when admitting
  themselves to hospital, those with a career in mental health
  used an alternative occupation and used false names
• TWELVE hospitals were chosen across FIVE states

Question 3

what was the PROCEDURE of study ONE?

Answer 3

1. Said they had been hearing voices - empty, hollow, thud
2. Once admitted, they acted normally; attempted to engage in conversations with others, obeyed the rules and expectations, pretended to take their medication without fuss
3. Participants found the whole experience distressing but staff reported them to be friendly and cooperative
4. In FOUR hospitals, the pseudopatients observed staff responses to a specific request - “when will I be discharged?” - they were compared against a control group at Stanford University

Question 4

What was the FINDINGS from study ONE?

Answer 4

• all eight pseudopatients were admitted to hospitals and
  never detected
• the average stay was NINETEEN days
• all but ONE was released with a diagnosis of schizophrenia
  in remission
• in 30% of the cases, real patients made comments that the
  pseudopatients had nothing wrong with them

Question 5

What is a TYPE 1 error in relation to Rosenhan?

Answer 5

healthy people being diagnosed as ill

Question 6

what does the STICKINESS of LABELS mean?

Answer 6

patient behaviour is interpreted in light of the diagnosis - when pacing in the hospital corridors, pseudopatients were asked whether they were nervous

Question 7

What does POWERLESSNESS mean in relation to Rosenhan?

Answer 7

a loss of control - personal privacy was taken away, staff could enter patient rooms and be examined at any time without warning

Question 8

What does DEPERSONALISATION mean in relation to Rosenhan?

Answer 8

experienced a loss of ‘personhood’ - average daily contact between staff and the patients was 6-8 minutes, 2100 pills were administered to the pseudopatients, staff didn’t check whether they swallowed them, as long as they were being cooperative

Question 9

What was the AIM of study TWO?

Answer 9

to investigate whether genuine patients would be misidentified as sane by hospital staff

Question 10

what was the SAMPLE of study TWO?

Answer 10

psychiatric staff who were asked to make judgements on 193 patients

Question 11

what was the PROCEDURE of study TWO?

Answer 11

1. staff were informed at one point during a three month period that one or more pseudopatients would attempt to gain admission into the hospital
2. they were then asked to rate each patient on the likelihood that they were an imposter

Question 12

what were the FINDINGS from study TWO?

Answer 12

193 genuine patients presented themselves over a three month period, in 41 of these cases at least one member of staff was confident that they were a pseudpatient

Question 13

what is a TYPE 2 error in relation to Rosenhan?

Answer 13

misidentifying the mentally ill patients as healthy

Question 14

What are the THREE CONCLUSIONS from Rosenhan’s study?

Answer 14

1. psychiatrists are unable to reliably identify the sane pseudopatients
2. psychiatrists also fail to reliably detect insanity
3. once labelled with a condition, patients find it difficult to escape that label.