PAPER 3 - SCHIZOPHRENIA - classification and diagnosis Flashcards
what is schizophrenia?
a severe mental disorder involving impaired insight and loss of contact with reality
what is classification of mental disorders?
the process of organising symptoms into categories based on which symptoms frequently cluster together
what are positive symptoms?
- symptoms experiences in addition to normal experiences
- hallucinations and delusions
what are hallucinations?
- positive symptom
- unreal perceptions of the environment that are auditory, visual, olfactory or tactile
- many schizophrenics report hearing voices to harm themselves or others
what are delusions?
- positive symptom
- irrational beliefs
- a person believes something is real that isn’t, involves inflated beliefs about persons power and importance
what are negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
- experiences that represent the loss of a usual experience
- speech poverty and avolition
how do we distinguish between positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
positive - excess/distortion of normal functioning
negative - loss/munition of normal functioning
what are the differences between the 2 manuals in their classification of schizophrenia?
DSM (US) - 1 positive symptom = schizophrenia
ICD (UK) - 2 negative symptoms = schizophrenia
what is speech poverty?
- negative symptom
- reduced frequency and quality of speech
what is avolition?
- negative symptom
- loss of motivation to carry out tasks and results in lower activity levels
what is co-morbidity?
- occurrence of 2 disorders together
- where 2 conditions are frequently diagnosed together it questions validity of classifying the 2 disorders separately
what is symptom overlap?
- occurs when 2 or more conditions share symptoms
- when 2 conditions share symptoms it questions validity of classifying the 2 disorders separately
why is good reliability a strength of the diagnosis of schizophrenia?
- Osorio reported excellent reliability/consistency of diagnosis of schizophrenia in 180 people using the DSM
- pairs of interviewers achieved inter-rater reliability of +0.97 and test-retest reliability of +0.92
why is gender bias in diagnosis a limitation of the diagnosis of schizophrenia?
- men are more commonly diagnosed with schizophrenia than women
- explanation could be that women are less vulnerable than men due to genetic factors
- seems more likely that women are underdiagnosed as they have closer relationships and support
- women may not be receiving treatment they need
why is culture bias in diagnosis a limitation of the diagnosis of schizophrenia?
- hearing voices have different meanings in different cultures
- afro-carribean societies consider hearing voices from loved ones to be desirable
- discriminated against due to culturally-biased diagnostic system