Schizophrenia Flashcards
What is schizophrenia (sz)?
Thought process disorder characterised by disruption to a person’s perceptions, emotions and beliefs
What are the 2 types of onset sz?
Acute or chronic
What’s acute sz?
sudden onset where behaviours changes within a few days
What’s chronic sz?
Gradual deterioration in mental health that develops slowly overtime
When do males vs females develop sz?
give some of the gender differences between sz
In males late teens or early 20’s, females 4-5 yrs later
over life time men and women are equally likely to be diagnosed just mean slightly earlier
Men are more likely to have drug abuse as a co-morbidity, have worse social functioning and suffer negative symptoms women more likely to display positive symptoms
Overall what % of the population suffer from sz?
0.5%
Name 5 clinical characteristics of sz?
Perceptual symptoms, social symptoms, cognitive symptoms, affective symptoms and behavioural symptoms
What is meant by the clinical characteristics of perceptual symptoms?
Auditory hallucinations, people often hear voices saying abusive things and sometimes people hear and see things that aren’t there
What are auditory hallucinations?
Hearing things that aren’t there, they are the most common type of hallucination in sz
What is meant by the clinical characteristics of social symptoms?
Social withdrawal and people might be aloof or avoid eye contact
What is social withdrawal?
not taking part in or enjoying social situations
What is meant by the clinical characteristics of cognitive symptoms?
Delusions, delusions of control and language impairments
What are delusions?
give 2 types
Believing things that aren’t true people have delusions of paranoia and persecution where they believe people are out to get them
delusions of persecution (feeling people are out to get them) and delusions of grandeur (thinking they are royalty)
What are delusions of control?
When they believe that their behaviour is being controlled by someone else
What are language impairments?
Irrelevant and incoherent speech, might show signs of cognitive distractibility where they can’t maintain a train of thought
What is meant by the clinical characteristics of affective symptoms?
Avolition, lack of interest in hygiene and personal care, lack of emotion and inappropriate emotions
What is meant by avolition?
a lack of drive, motivation or interest in achieving goals
What is meant by the clinical characteristics of behavioural symptoms?
Stereotyped behaviour, psychomotor disturbance
What is meant by stereotyped behaviour?
Continuously repeating actions which are often strange and don’t have a purpose
What is meant by psychomotor disturbance?
Not having control of your muscles people may experience catalonia where they sit in an awkward position for a long time
what are positive symptoms?
Where people experience certain behaviors that are extra and not normally there
to be diagnosed must have 1 of these for at least a month
what are negative symptoms?
where people don’t display normal behaviors which are normally there
give 2 examples of positive symptoms of sz?
hallucinations, delusions, jumbled speech and disorganized behavior
give 2 examples of negative symptoms of sz?
speech poverty, lack of emotion, avolition and lack of ability to function normally
What is descriptive validity?
How similar individuals diagnosed with the disorder are
What is aetiological validity?
how similar the cause of the disorder is for each sufferer
What is predictive validity?
how useful the diagnostic categories are for predicting the right treatment
What are some of the main issues with reliability of diagnosing sz?
It may be affected by cultural bias, over diagnosis in West Indian patients in Bristol suggesting symptoms of ethnic minority have been misinterpreted. Also between countries 69% seen to have sz in America but only 2% in Britain in the same patients also due to gender bias 56% diagnosed the male only 20% diagnosed the women when have the same symptoms
What are the main problems with the validity of diagnosis sz?
Rosenhan (1973) conducted a study where people with no mental health conditions got themselves admitted to a psychiatric ward saying they heard voices and became pseudopatients once admitted they behaved normally but one girl was writing in a diary and the staff labelled it as writing behaviour questioning the validity as once someone is labelled with a mental disorder any behaviour can be interpreted to cause and effect. Symptom overlap can cause issues
What’s co-morbidity and what problem can it cause?
Co-morbidity can be an issue in making a reliable and valid diagnosis of sz as it means having 2+ conditions at the same time e.g depressions and sz having 2 makes it hard to distinguish between them
What is meant by genetic factors of sz?
Being genetically related to someone with sz can significantly increase a persons chances of developing it. Family and twin studies have looked at concordance rates
suggesting it’s inherited and results from a biological process driven by activity of certain genes for brain structure and NT level
What is evidence for the genetic factors playing a part in getting sz?
Shields (1962) found MZ twins raised in different families still showed around 50% concordance adoption studies found that if children are adopted because one or both of their biological parents has sz chances of them developing it stays the same showing genetics are more significant than environment
What is evidence against the genetic factors playing a part in getting sz?
No study has found an100% concordance rate between MZ twins, so sz can’t just be caused by genes. Shared environment may cause higher concordance rates in family studies as children imitate sz behaviours so other factors can be considered
What are biochemical factors in getting sz?
Post-morten sans PET scans have shown that people with sz have abnormally high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Leading to the dopamine hypothesis stating the synapse that uses dopamine as a neurotransmitter Are over active in the brains of people with schizophrenia
What’s the evidence for biochemical factors causing schizophrenia?
Antipsychotic drugs, reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia by blocking, dopamine, receptors, suggesting that it’s the overactive dopamine receptor, causing the symptoms. Drugs, like amphetamines, which increase dopamine function can cause sz like symptoms in those without sz
What’s the evidence against biochemical factors causing schizophrenia?
Antipsychotic drugs only work on the positive symptoms of increased dopamine function and doesn’t explain negative symptoms, such as social withdrawal. The link with dopamine is correlational. So it doesn’t show cause-and-effect meaning that increase dopamine function may be a symptom of schizophrenia, rather than a cause
What’s a neurological factor of getting schizophrenia?
Neural correlates such as abnormal brain structure could explain schizophrenia
What is the evidence for neurological factors, causing schizophrenia?
Johnstone eat al (1976) Compared the size of ventricles in the brains of people with schizophrenia with the brains of those without. They found that the people with schizophrenia had enlarged ventricles, which suggests that it is linked to a reduction in the temporal and frontal lobe volume.
Buchsbaum’s (1990) MRI scans on the brain of people with schizophrenia found abnormalities in the pre-frontal
The evidence against neurological factors, causing schizophrenia?
People without schizophrenia can also have enlarged ventricles showing the relationship isn’t that simple. These findings are correlational, so they don’t show cause-and-effect that means that the abnormal brain structure may be a symptom of schizophrenia rather than cause.
What’s the evolutionary explanation for sz?
Evolutionary explanations of schizophrenia suggest that there must’ve been an advantage to having it for it to remain in the population. One evolutionary idea is that people diagnosed with it today share similar characteristics to Shamans in the past. They were likely to lead people to split off from the group when it got too big, starting new.
What is the evidence for the evolutionary explanation of schizophrenia?
There is such a strong genetic link to schizophrenia that there must’ve been some form of evolutionary explanation
What is the evidence against the evolutionary explanation for schizophrenia?
There is little evidence, and the theory is difficult to prove
Schizophrenia can be caused by psychological factors, name the three?
Family dysfunction, cognitive explanations and socio-cultural factors
In terms of psychological factors for sz, explain family dysfunction?
One idea is that a cold and dominant schizophrenogenic mother can create conflict causing sz. Another idea is Bateson’s double-bind theory which suggests that faulty communication in families could lead to contradictory messages for children and cause sz. Expressed emotion environments contain high levels of hostility and criticism towards the person. It’s been found in dysfunctional families and correlate with relapse and people with sz.
