Schizophrenia Flashcards
what’s schizophrenia?
a serious mental disorder that 1% of the world suffer from. it’s more commonly diagnosed in men than women, cities than countryside and working class than middle class.
what’s the classification of mental disorder?
the process of organising symptoms into categories based on which symptoms cluster together in sufferers.
what are the 2 systems?
ICD-10 and DSM-5. DSM-5, 1 positive symptom must be present whereas ICD-10, 2 or more negative symptoms are sufficient.
what are positive symptoms of SZ?
additional experiences beyond ordinary existence. hallucinations = unusual sensory experiences, hearing voices commenting to them or seeing distorted faces. delusions = irrational beliefs, sufferers believe they are under external control, making them behave unusually.
what are negative symptoms of SZ?
a loss of usual abilities. avolition = finding it difficult to begin goal-directed activities and reduced motivation. Anderson found 3 signs: poor hygiene, lack of persitence and lack of energy. speech poverty = reduction in amount and quality of speech, a delay in responses, incoherent and change mid-topic.
what’s reliability for SZ?
reliability is consistency. inter-rater reliability is the extent that 2 mental health professionals agree on their diagnosis. Cheniaux had 2 psychiatrists independently diagnose 100 patients. inter-rater reliability was poor, one diagnosed 70 and the other diagnosed 37.
what’s validity of SZ?
the extent to which we measure what we intend to measure. a way to assess SZ is criterion validity; do different assessments work on the same patient? SZ is more likely to be diagnosed with ICD (Cheniaux). this shows poor validity.
what’s co-morbidity of SZ?
2 or more conditions occuring at the same time. this leads to questioning validity as they may be a single condition. Buckley found 50% SZ patients had depression, 29% had PTSD, 47% had substance abuse and 23% had OCD. this shows we may be bad at telling the difference between SZ and depression.
what’s symptom overlap?
both SZ and bipolar disorder involve positive symptoms (delusions) and negative symptoms (avolition). this questions validity. under ICD, a patient might be diagnosed with SZ and bipolar under DSM. this suggests they may be the same condition.
