Schizophrenia Flashcards
Diagnostic Criteria: schizo definition
- psychotic disorder ( pacients lose contact with reality),
- hard to tell difference between real and imagined experiences
- most lack insight into their condition
Diagnostic Criteria
- must show at least one of the symptoms for at least one month
- 2 symptoms necessary in less clear cut cases
- other potential causes for symptoms must be eliminated before diagnosis (medication side effects, brain tumour, substance misuse)
-prodromal symptoms: weaker versions of the core symptomps, typically shown before diagnosis
Diagnostic Criteria: Age of Onset
-males: usually earlier (earlier to mid 20)
-females: late 20’s
-late onset (40+) more common in females
-prevalence similar male&female (o.3 -o.7)
Positive vs negative symptoms
Positive symptoms - the presence of psychological abnormality
negative sympotms - the absence of behaviours that we consider psychollogically normal
+ Hallucinations
involuntary perceptual experiences that happen in the absence of external stimuli
- visual, olfactory, somatosensory
+ Influence, passivity or control - 3 eg
the subjective experience that our thoughts, feelings and actions are controlled by external forces
- thought withdrawal: feeling that thoughts are being removed
- thought insertion: feeling that thoughts are being implanted
- thought broadcasting: feeling that their thoughts are being transmitted to others
+ Delusions
fixed beliefs that conflict with reality
- grandeur: may see themselves as exceptional (superhuman powers)
-persecution: belief others want to harm them or they are being spied on, or tricked
-reference: belief random situations have personal significance (its a sign)
+ Other Positive Symptoms
-disorganised thinking
-incoherent speech
-unexpected gestures and posture
negative sympotms - list and def
avolition- inability to carry out goal driven behaviour
alogia- lack of spoken language
anhedonia- inability to experience pleasure
asociality- social withdrawal
About Aneja
- case study of a boy from a troubled home and aggressive father, divorced parents and living with grandparents
- hearing teasing voices, spoke to unseen others, spoke very little, lack of insight into his condition, asocial
-given sodium valporate - behaviour improved at first but worsened again and he was admitted in hospital for own safety
Aneja Evaluation 1+ 1-
+ detailed case history - increases validity of diagnosis
- not generisable to other cultures - took place in india where there is stigma - might have worsened condition
Freeman: aim and hypothesis
To find out whether neutral non-threatening avatars could provoke persecutory thoughts in people with no previous clinical diagnoses.
And whether this was more common in people with higher levels of paranoia and emotional distress
Freeman: methodology
correlational study
quantitative data - questionnaires
qualitative data - semi-structured interviews
Freeman: sample
volunteer sampling
12 male 12 women
mean age: 26
UCL
mentally well
21 students, 3 staff
Freeman: procedure
- trained in how to use VR
- half completed BSI, Spielberger State Anxiety Questionnaire, Paranoia Scale
- all completed vr task
- 5 avatars sat in 2 small groups in a library, talking to eachother, sometimes smiling
- Were asked: Explore the room and try to form some impression of what you think about the people in the room and what they think about you.
- All completed the 3 questionnaires plus a new one - VR Paranoia
Freeman: questionnaires -4
Brief Symptom Inventory - 53 item questionnaire to asses mood in past 7 days
Paranoia Scale - 20 item, measures ideas of persecution and reference
Spielberger State Anxiety Questionnaire - 20 item, measures current state
VR - Paranoia Scale: 15 item
Freeman: results - 4 correlations, 2 comments, level of agreement to statements
Persecutory thoughts + positively correlated with ideas of reference
Persecutory thoughts - negatively correlated with positive beliefs
Persecutory thoughts in the questionnaire + positively correlated with persecutory thoughts in the interview the interviews
VR Persecutory ideation + positively correlated with paranoia, interpersonal sensitivity and anxiety, all
measured using the BSI
Comments from the semi-structured interviews:
- Positive: people were nicer than real people
-Negative: They were telling me to go away
Someone in the room had it in for me - most disagreed
They were talking about me behind my
back - a bit more agreed
They were friendly towards me - most agreed
Freeman: conclusion
Emotional processes linked to anxiety and interpersonal sensitivity contribute directly to the development
of persecutory ideation
VR holds ‘great promise’ not only as a tool for enhancing theoretical understanding but also as a way of helping individuals to evaluate and reduce persecutory ideation and delusions
Freeman: ethics
- all gave consent
- levels of anxiety were relatively the same before and after VR
- Freeman checked to see if time in VR created any distress in interviews - not the case
Freeman: Two strengths, 2 Weaknesses
+ half the participants answered BSI, paranoia,, and anxiety questionnaires - to see if there were any demand characteristics
+ both nomothetic and ideographic - qualitative - idiographic, quantitative - nomothetic
- sampling bias - all from UCL -not generalisable
- participants reported low level of presence in VR - LOW ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
Freeman: Issues and debates
- both nomothetic and ideographic - qualitative - idiographic, quantitative - nomotheti
