Schizophrenia Flashcards
positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia
positive symptoms: added experiences
-hallucinations which refer to perceiving things that aren’t real
-delusions which refer to holding onto irrational beliefs
negative symptoms: absence of experience
-avolition which refers to a lack of motivation/energy to complete everyday tasks
how is schizophrenia diagnosed
- using a book called DSM
DSM states you must have at least 2 main symptoms for at least 6 months
what is inter-rater liability
when multiple people make the same measurement to see how similar their measurements are
assessing validity of schizophrenia
Rosenhams study
-got 8 healthy volunteers to pretend they have schizophrenia
-tested how long it took the doctors to realise they were healthy
-found that it took between 7-52 to realise the volunteers were healthy
- therefore concluded diagnoses of schizophrenia can lack validity
culture bias refers to
when researchers misrepresent the differences between cultures
evidence of cultural bias Cochrone(1977)
-conducted a review comparing the amount of people diagnosed with schizophrenia in Britain and the Caribbean
-found overall rate was similar(1%)
-found that Afro-Caribbean people were 7x more likely to get diagnosed with schizophrenia when living in Britain then the Caribbean
-Cochrone concluded this was because of cultural bias by British doctors
gender bias refers to
-when the difference men and women are misrepresented
types of gender bias
alpha bias- overexaggerating differences in men and women’s behaviour
beta bias-ignoring real differences between men and women
both types of bias can lead to over or under diagnosis of schizophrenia in men and women
evidence of gender bias
(Loring and Powell)
-gave male and female doctors identical descriptions of a patient
-but varied the gender of the patient
-they found that when the patient was described as male, 56% of doctors diagnosed the patient with schizophrenia
-however, when the patient was described as female, only 20% of doctors diagnosed the patient with schizophrenia
-this therefore shows they may be alpha bias in the diagnosis of schizophrenia
comorbidity refers to
when to or more illnesses occur together in the same person
outline comorbidity
if patient has comorbid illness, doctors are more likely to ignore some of the symptoms
-so different doctors might give the patient different diagnosis
-therefore reducing the reliability of the diagnosis
evidence of comorbidity (Buckley)
-investigated how many schizophrenic patients had a comorbid mental disorder
- he found that 50% of patients had depression and schizophrenia, 27% of patients had an addiction and schizophrenia, and 23% had OCD and schizophrenia
symtom overlap refers to
-symptoms of schizophrenia overlapping with symptoms of other diagnosis
-therefore patients might be diagnosed with the wrong disorder, reducing validity
also, different doctors may diagnose patients with different disorders, therefore reducing reliability
evidence of system overlap
(Ellason and Ross,1995)
-compared symptoms of schizophrenia with symptoms of dissociative identity disorder
-found that patients with dissociative identity disorder displayed more schizophrenic symptoms than patients with schizophrenia
-therefore reducing validity
