Schizophrenia Flashcards
What is schizophrenia?
-severe mental illness where contact with reality and insight are impaired.
-disruption of cognition and emotion (affects behaviour)
-Affects about 1% of the population.
-More common in men.
-More common for city living people than in the countryside.
-More common in working class than middle class people.
What is classification?
-action or process of classifying
something
In psychology/mental health terms
-The process of organising symptoms into,categories based on which symptoms cluster together in sufferers.
Classification comes before diagnosis
What is diagnosis?
-identification of the nature of an illness or other problem by examination of the symptoms
What is a symptom?
-A physical or mental feature which is regarded as indicating a condition or
disease, particularly such a feature that is apparent to the patient.
What are Positive symptoms of schizophrenia? Definition and, features
-Positive symptoms of schizophrenia are
those which ADD to “normal” behaviour Eg hallucinations or delusions
-Respond better to drug treatment
-Are more common in females
-Are more obvious to friends/family.
What are negative symptoms of schizophrenia? Definition and, features
-Negative symptoms are those which REMOVE aspects of “normal” behaviour eg speech poverty and avolition
-Do not respond well to drug treatment
-Are more common in males
• Are not as obvious to friends/family
-Usually occur before positive symptoms
What are hallucinations?
-Sensory experiences of stimuli that have no basis in reality/distorted perceptions of real things
-can relate to any sense but the most common are:
• Visual hallucinations – seeing things that are not there.
• Auditory hallucinations – hearing
things that are not there.
What are delusions?
-Involve irrational beliefs that have
no basis in reality
•
-For example:
•delusions of grandeur = sufferer believe themselves to be an impotent figure
•delusions of persecution = sufferer sees themself as a victim of a conspiracy
What is Avolition?
-Involves loss of motivation for tasks, results in lowered activity levels
-Sufferers find it difficult to begin or keep up with goal directed activity (working towards a result)
Signs of avolition include:
-Poor hygiene and grooming
-Lack of persistence in work/education
-Lack of energy
-It is sometimes known as apathy.
What is speech poverty?
-Involves reduced frequency and quality of speech
-sufferer may be delayed in responding
verbally during conversations.
-It is also known as alogia
What are the two classification systems for schizophrenia?
-World Health Organisation’s International Classification of
Disease Edition 10 (ICD 10)
-American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual Edition 5 (DSM 5)
What is the features of International Classification of Disease Edition 10?
-No positive symptoms are required for a diagnosis.
-Two or more negative symptoms
are sufficient:
• Speech Poverty
• Avolition
-Recognises subtypes of schizophrenia:
• Paranoid
• Hebephrenic (foolish or bizarre
behaviour, hallucinations)
• Catatonic (affects way you
move in extreme ways).
What are the features of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Edition 5?
-One positive symptom MUST be
present for diagnosis:
• Hallucinations
• Delusions
• Speech Disorganisation
-does not recognise subtypes
Define reliability? What are the two types in context if diagnoses?
-the consistency of something
-Inter-rater reliability concerns whether different clinicians make identical, independent diagnoses of the same patient
-Test-retest reliability* whether a clinician makes the same diagnosis on separate occasions from the same information
Cheniaux et al. (2009) study in relation to reliability
-Had *two psychiatrists independently diagnose 100 patients *using both the DSM and the ICD criteria.
-Inter-rater reliability was poor
•One psychiatrist diagnosed 26 patients with schizophrenia using the DSM and 44 patients using the ICD
•other psychiatrist diagnosed 13 patients using the DSM and 24 patients using ICD
