Schizophrenia Flashcards
What are positive symptoms to schizophrenia
Experiences that are in addition to normal experiences
What are examples of positive symptoms
Hallucinations - additional sensory experiences, seeing distortions in objects that look like faces/ hearing critical voices
Delusions - irrational beliefs about themselves or the world. E.g. government are out to get me
What are negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
Loss of normal experiences and abilities
What are some examples of negative symptoms?
Avolition - lack of purposeful, willed behaviour.
Speech poverty - brief verbal communication style. Loss of quality and quantity of verbal responses.
Reliability in the diagnosis of schizophrenia
Inter rater reliability if two observers agree
Test-retest reliability - related reliability if the same doctor is giving the same diagnosis over time with the same symptoms
Validity in the classification of schizophrenia
Validity question if a person has the disorder when diagnosed or if it’s a real disorder with clear unique symptoms
What did beck (1963) find?
153 patients, diagnosed by multiple doctors
54% concordance rate between doctors
Suggests low inter rater reliability and many diagnosed incorrectly (low validity)
What is co morbidity?
Often diagnosed with other disorders
Lead to inaccurate diagnosis of schizophrenia
What is symptom overlap?
Bipolar disorder also has hallucinations and delusions as a symptom
May not be distinct should be redefined
What did Buckley (2009) find
Co morbidity rates with schizophrenia
Depression 50%, drug abuse 47%, PTSD 29%, OCD 23%
Gender bias in diagnosis?
Cotton argues womens experiences are taken less seriously and underdiagnosed
Due to womens coping strategies leading to being less likely to seek treatment
Culture bias in schizophrenia diagnosis
People with Afro-Caribbean heritage 9x more likely to be diagnosed
Fernando argues this is due to category failure:
Western definitions are applied to non western cultures
What did Loring and Powell find?
Sent 290 psychiatrists two identical case studies (altering ethnicity and gender)
Found overdiagnosis in black client and under diagnosis of female client
Most accurate diagnosis when gender and race of the psychiatrists were the same
Suggests existence of gender/culture bias in diagnosis
What is the genetic explanation of schizophrenia?
Genes code for biological processes, including variation in brain structure and biochemistry
Polygenic disorder - multiple gene locations associated with schizophrenia
Concordance rates and schizophrenia?
Higher in families than in general population (1%)
Closer related the family member, higher the concordance for schizophrenia
Due to increased genetic similarity
What are neural correlates?
Variation in neural and biochemistry
Correlated with an increased risk of developing schizophrenia
What is the dopamine hypothesis
Symptoms are due to imbalance of the dopamine neurotransmitter across the brain
Excessive amounts of dopamine (hyperdopaminergia) in speech centres may lead to auditory hallucinations.
Lower levels (hypodopaminergia) in areas like the frontal cortex are linked to negative symptoms
What is glutamate?
Excitatory neurotransmitter involved in learning, attention and memory found in low quantities for people with schizophrenia
What are enlarged vesicles?
Voids in the brain filled with cerebrospinal fluid have been correlated with schizophrenia
What was gottesman (1991)
Concordance rate 48% for identical twins
17% for non identical twins
Suggests genetic factor however not 100% for MZ so must be a role for environmental factors
Tienari (2004)
Studied biological children of schizophrenic mothers who had been adopted
5.8% of children adopted got schizophrenia compared to 36.8% raised in dysfunctional families.
Higher figure in dysfunctional families suggest psychological trigger is a factor
What did leucht find?
Meta analysis 212 studies
Drug treatment normalising dopamine levels more effective than placebo
Supports dopamine hypothesis
How might biological approach make victims feel sad?
Claiming schizophrenia is biologicall determined may make sufferers feel disempowered when diagnosed.
Soft determinist perspective suggests clients can reconstruct the irrational mental processes, empowering sufferers
How does parsimony affect schizophrenia?
Explains schizophrenic at a basic cellular and chemical level. Led to highly effective drug therapies.
Fails to consider the evidence for psychological causes of schizophrenia