Schizophrenia

Question 1

Core symptoms of schizophrenia:

Answer 1

Persistent delusions
Persistent hallucinations
Thought disorder
Experiences of influence, passivity or control

Question 2

Other negative symptoms of schizophrenia include:

Answer 2

Avolition
Catatonia
Flattened effect
Impaired cognitive function

Question 3

State 6 types of delusion:

Answer 3

Erotomatic
Jealous
Grandiose
Persecutory
Delusion of reference
Somatotype

Question 4

Examples of typical antipsychotic:

Answer 4

Chlorpromazine
Loxapine

Question 5

Examples of atypical antipsychotic:

Answer 5

Clozapine
Olanzapine

Question 6

What is persecutory delusion?

Answer 6

A strongly held belief that you are in danger, being conspired against or others are pursuing you to try to do you harm.

Question 7

What is grandiose delusion?

Answer 7

A strongly held belief that you have superpowers or special abilities.

Question 8

What is delusion of reference?

Answer 8

A strongly held belief that events in the environment are related to you.

Question 9

What is jealous delusion?

Answer 9

A strongly held belief that their partners are being unfaithful.

Question 10

What is erotomatic delusion?

Answer 10

A strongly held belief that another person is in love with them.

Question 11

What is somatotype delusion?

Answer 11

A strongly held belief that your body parts are malfunctioning.

Question 12

State the two aims of Freeman et al. (2003).

Answer 12

1. To investigate whether participants without a history of mental illness have thoughts of a persecutory nature in virtual reality.
2. To find out whether there are cognitive or emotional factors that predict the likelihood of persecutory ideation being shown in virtual reality.

Question 13

What is the sample of Freeman et al. (2003)?

Answer 13

1. 12 male and 12 female
2. From University College London
3. An average age of 26 years
4. Had no history of mental illness
5. Recruited using volunteer sampling through advertisement

Question 14

What is the experimental design of Freeman et al. (2003)?

Answer 14

Laboratory experiment.

Question 15

Define schizophrenia.

Answer 15

Schizophrenia is a severe type of psychotic disorder that involves a major break from reality in which the individual perceives the world in a way that is vastly different from how others perceive it. It is characterised by disturbances across a person’s thought, feelings, experience and behaviour.

Question 16

What are the conclusions of Freeman et al. (2003)?

Answer 16

1. Freeman et al. concluded that people do attribute mental states to VR characters and, although these are usually positive, they can be persecutory in nature.
2. People are more likely to show persecutory ideation if they show high levels of interpersonal sensitivity or anxiety.

Question 17

State the likelihood of developing schizophrenia if you have a monozygotic twin with schizophrenia.

Answer 17

42%

Question 18

State the likelihood of developing schizophrenia if you have a dizygotic twin with schizophrenia.

Answer 18

9%

Question 19

Explain dopamine hypothesis.

Answer 19

Schizophrenic patients’ brain produce more dopamine than normal people.

This causes certain neurons to fire too often or send to much information.

This leads to positive symptoms such as hallucination.

Question 20

Explain the cognitive cause of schizophrenia.

Answer 20

Abnormality of self-monitoring.
Patients fail to recognise that their perceived hallucinations are just inner speech. It leads them to attribute what they are hearing to an external source.

Misinterpretation of perception.
Those experiencing delusions may be applying logical reasoning to their hallucinations. Thoughts that are self-generated instead appear to be coming from an external source and become incorporated in the individual’s set of beliefs.

Question 21

State the side effects of typical antipsychotics:

Answer 21

Extrapyramidal symptoms (EPs)
Tardive dyskenesia (TD)

Question 22

State the side effects of atypical antipsychotics:

Answer 22

Weight gain
Drowsiness
Difficult concentrating

Question 23

Explain electroconvulsive therapy.

Answer 23

It involves passing electricity through the brain with the intention of inducing a seizure.

Side effects include temporary memory loss. More extreme but rare side effects include neurological damage and death.

Question 24

Explain CBT.

Answer 24

CBT is a talking therapy designed to help people change through recognising and challenging their thoughts that underlie their behaviour.

Question 25

What is the conclusion of Sensky et al. (2000)?

Answer 25

CBT reduces the symptoms of schizophrenia and that the benefits continue for at least another nine months after the treatment.

Question 26

Describe the sample of Sensky et al. (2000).

Answer 26

90 patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia

Aged 16 to 60 years

44 in control (befriending group)
46 in treatment group

Question 27

State the aim of Sensky et al. (2000).

Answer 27

To test whether CBT is truly effective at reducing the symptoms of schizophrenia, rather than just the experience of talking to others.

Question 28

List some assessment tools for schizophrenia.

Answer 28

Comprehensive Psychiatric Rating Scale (CPRS)

Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS)

Question 29

Briefly explain the similarities between biochemical treatments and CBT.

Answer 29

1. Strong evidence that they are effective (include findings from studies as evidence).
2. Both require intervention from therapist. For example, to adjust the time of therapy, dosage of medicine and the use of assessment tools.

Question 30

Briefly explain the differences between biochemical treatments and CBT.

Answer 30

1. CBT requires active participation from patient whereas biochemical treatment is passive.
2. CBT is using cognitive approach whereas biochemical treatment is using biological approach.
3. Biochemical treatment has more side effects than CBT.

Question 31

Describe one of the studies from Aneja et al. (2018).

Answer 31

Describes a boy who showed a decline in his academic studies and general behaviour from the age of 10. His parents divorced and he and his mother moved in with his grandparents and he changed school.

From age 12, he started hearing voices and believed his mother and other people is communicating with the voices. He became erratic, muttered to himself, shouted at nothing and barely slept.

He was admitted to hospital and given medications.