Schizophrenia Flashcards
Whaley
Found that inter-rater reliability correlation co-efficient in the diagnosis of schizophrenia was as low as 0.11.
Rosenhan
Sent ‘normal’ people into US psychiatric hospitals claiming to hear voices saying “thud”. All but one were diagnosed with schizophrenia and were admitted into the hospital. While there, they acted ‘normally’ and even after telling the staff that they felt fine and no longer had the symptoms- took an average of 19 days, some 2 months before discharged. (only when agreed had been insane.)
Copeland
Found that when British and US psychiatrists were given the same description of a patient, 69% of the US psychiatrists diagnosed them as schizophrenic, whereas only 2% of the British psychiatrists gave the same diagnosis. Cultural differences.
Joseph
Pooled together research done on the concordance rate for schizophrenia in different types of twins. Found that overall, monozygotic twins had a C.R. of 40.4%, in comparison to dizygotic twins who had a C.R. of 7.4%.
Gottesman
Found that the closer the degree of the relation, the greater the likelihood of also having schizophrenia. For example, having 2 schizophrenic parents= 46% C.R. 1 schizophrenic parent= 13% C.R. and a sibling= 9% C.R.
The dopamine hypothesis suggests…
that messages from neurons that transmit dopamine, fire too easily/quickly, which can lead to characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia.
Schizophrenic sufferers are thought to have abnormally high numbers of?
Dopamine receptors. Which leads to more dopamine binding, and so there is also therefore more neuron firing.
Dopamine neurons play a key role in our…?
Attention. So therefore any disturbances in it will cause issues with things such as attention/thought/perception etc. as suggested by Comer.
A problem with the dopamine hypothesis and treatment of it is?
That these drugs (amphetamines) can actually increase the levels dopamine, instead of decrease them, as neurons struggle to compensate for the sudden loss.
Haracz
Found that in a review of post-mortem studies of schizophrenics, most of those who showed elevated dopamine levels had received anti-psychotic drugs shortly before death.
Side effects of conventional anti-psychotic drugs?
Shaking, the stiffening of muscles, slowing down in movement, confusion, and TARDIVE DYSKINESIA.
Hill
Found that for all of the people who take conventional anti-psychotic drugs, 30% develop tardive dyskisesia, which is irreversible in 75% of these cases.
Davis
Reviewed 29 studies on the effectiveness of conventional anti-psychotic drugs and found that relapse occurred in 55% of those using the placebo, compared to just 19% who still relapsed with the actual drug.
Ross and Read
Pointed out how from Davis’ study (on the relapse rates of conventional anti-psychotic drugs vs. placebo) that those who had their drugs replaced with a placebo were in a withdrawal state, and so therefore more vulnerable than those remained on the drug.
Is it conventional anti-psychotic drugs or atypical anti-psychotic drugs which block the action of serotonin as well as dopamine?
Atypical anti-psychotic drugs
Awad and Voruganti
Found that atypical anti-psychotic drugs had fewer side effects as well as being 20% more effective than conventional anti-psychotic drugs.
Read
Found that between 1979 and 1999 there was a 59% decline in the U.K. of E.C.T.’s performed.
Braga and Petrides
Reviewed 42 articles on the use of E.C.T. with anti-psychotic drugs, and they found that they almost all agreed that this combination was the best way of treating schizophrenia.
The socio-cultural explanation involves…
EE which focuses on the interpersonal communications within families.
Kavanagh
Found that people living in families with high EE were 4 times more likely to relapse into their schizophrenic phase, that those in families with lower EE.
Brown and Birley
Found that approx 50% of people experienced a major life event in the 3 weeks prior to that schizophrenic episode, whereas only 12% reported one in the 9 weeks prior to that.
Yellowlees
Developed a machine to try and produce virtual hallucinations, (such as hearing the TV telling you to kill yourself, or faces morphing into one another) to try and show that hallucinations aren’t real. Not been found to be entirely effective though.
Lewis
Found that C.B.T. shortens the length of the episode, but the patients are then more likely to relapse than without C.B.T.
Malmberg and Fenton
Argued that it is impossible to draw any conclusions on the effectiveness of psychodynamic therapies. (often on anti-psychotic drugs too, or there may be other triggers too)
Karen ad Vandebos
Produced research to try and separate these different types of treatment in order to compare them. Had 3 groups of pps. One group on anti-psychotic drugs, another on psychodynamic therapies and the other on both. Found psychodynamic treatment alone was the superior treatment.
