Rosenhan (1973) Flashcards
What was the aim of Rosenhan?
To test the reliability and validity of diagnosis by seeing if a sane person would be diagnosed as mentally ill when presented to a psychiatric hospital
What was the sample?
12 hospitals
5 states
Varied characteristics e.g. modern/old, well staffed/poorly staffed, public/private
How many pseudo patients?
8 pseudopatients
5 men and 3 women
What was the method?
- made appointment with hospital and claimed to hear voices saying words like “thud”, “empty” and “hollow”.
- told to be truthful about everything else including when asked about their life experiences.
- once admitted to the hospital, they acted completely normal and recorded notes in their diary about how they were treat
What type of study was Rosenhan?
A natural, participant, covert observation.
How many participants were admitted and diagnosed?
100% were admitted
11 were diagnosed with Schizophrenia
1 was diagnosed with manic depression
How long did they remain in the hospital for? Shortest, longest and average?
Shortest = 7 days Longest = 52 days Average = 19 days
What happened when they were released?
They were released as Schizophrenics in remission. The doctors still didn’t know they weren’t ill and instead thought they were still ill but not showing any symptoms anymore.
How were they treat by staff?
- nurses spent 7 minutes on average with each patient per day.
- nurses spent 90% of their time in the restricted “cage” area (their office)
What did the patients report about their feelings while in hospital?
Total lack of power over themselves:
- freedom of movement restricted
- no toilet doors so no privacy
- personal history was made available to all staff including volunteers
Were the patients monitored? Medication?
2100 pills in total were given out but only 2 were actually taken - the rest were flushed down the toilet - showing that staff didn’t monitor the patients
How did the staff perceive them differently as mentally ill patients?
Sticky label of Sz = behaviours were mistaken by staff:
- writing in diaries = patient engaging in pathological writing behaviour.
- waiting/queuing up for lunch = oral acquisitive syndrome
(normal behaviours now seen as symptoms of illness)
Did anyone suspect the pseudo patients?
Yes - 35/118 real patients voiced their suspicions but no staff did.
What was study 2?
- told hospitals he would send patients over next 3 months and they would have to pick out those who were fake but didn’t actually send any
- 193 ‘patients’ were assessed:
staff = 41 rated as fake
psychiatrist = 23
patients = 19
BUT… none were
Evaluation of generalisability.
+ various characteristics of hospitals used = representative of the different hospitals available and so can be applied
- all in USA = ethnocentric
- 12 is a small sample = any anomalies easily skew the data
