Psychology (Schizophrenia: Suzuki et al study) Flashcards
What is the Aim Suzuki et al.?
to investigate the prevalence of being underweight and overweight in Japanese inpatients with schizophrenia
What is the sample of Suzuki et al.?
191 healthy volunteers and 142 schizophrenia patients, making it a total sample of 333 aged 16-80 years old.
What were the results of Suzuki et al.?
Patients with Schizophrenia were either really underweight or really overweight
underweight patients had the highest duration of hospitalisation
What is the conclusion of Suzuki et al.?
The nutritional status of japanese inpatients with schizophrenia is poorer than that of the general population
Evaluations of Suzuki et al.?
High validity - Suzuki controlled the extraneous variables by excluding patients that have extra physical illnesses, recent changes in drug therapy etc. To ensure that the factor influencing the weight and nutritional level is the mental disorder, not other variables. Increasing the validity of results.
High generalizability- Suzuki used a participant sample of 333, age 16-80yr and from 9 different mental hospitals. This is a large sample and includes a variation of ages. Therefore it can be generalized to the target population. However, it only included schizophrenic patients from Japan, missing out other nationalities, therefore it cannot be generalized to the world schizophrenic population.
Good ethics- Suzuki gathered informed consent from all the participants, making the study ethical. However schizophrenic patients may not have logical conscience to judge the consent, therefore presumptive consent should also be gathered.
High credibility- Kitabayashi et al (2006) findings found that the percentage of underweight in schizophrenic patients is higher than the percentage (8.1%) of underweight general population in Japan. Supporting Suzuki’s conclusion.
