Schizophrenia

Question 1

Freeman(2007)

还要再看看

Answer 1

Freeman explores the potential for the use of virtual reality to eliminate the misinterpretation of other people’s behavior and distrust, paranoia and withdrawal when checking symptoms and developing treatment for schizophrenia. The technique used for VR in Freeman’s research involved a specifically designed library or underground train scene.

The researcher found that those who scored highly on questionnaire assessment of paranoia experienced high levels of ‘persecutory ideation’ during the VR trial.

Question 2

Gottesman & Shields (1972)

Answer 2

Twin study-research the genetic inheritance of schizophrenia. Monozygotic twins share their entire DNA, whereas non-identical or dizygotic twins only share around 50% of their DNA. G&S found that approximately 50% of MZ twins had a shared status, but the concordance was much lower in DZ twins(around 9%). In MZ twins, the co-twin was more likely to be schizophrenic if the illness of their twin was severe.

Question 3

Frith(1992)

Answer 3

Involving faulty mental processes. Frith describes schizophrenia as ‘abnormality of self-monitoring’. A flattening of affect, lack of speech and social withdrawal all result from difficulties in monitoring their own mental states and the states of others.

Question 4

Paul&Lentz

Answer 4

Investigated the effectiveness of one operant conditioning strategy to reinforce appropriate behavior with schizophrenic patients. P&L used an independent measures design to compare the outcomes of three different forms of treatment; milieu therapy, traditional existing hospital management of schizophrenia and a token economy system in a hospital ward.
The system was most effective ar reducing catatonic behavior and social withdrawal but less successful in reducing hallucinations and delusional thinking. 97% of the token economy group were subsequently able to live independently in the community for between 1.5 and five years, compared to 71% in the milieu group and 45% in the hospital group.

Question 5

Sensky(2000)

Answer 5

CBT. Sensky carried out a randomized control trial to compare the effectiveness of CBT with a control group who engaged in ‘befriending. 90 patients; 16-60 years with a diagnosis of treatment-resistant schizophrenia from five clinical services; 19 sessions; independent groups design; nine-month follow-up. They used a number of standardized, validated assessment scales such as the Comprehensive Psychiatric Rating Scale and Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms. Results showed that in both groups showed a significant overall reduction in both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. At the follow-up stage, the CBT group continued to improve in reduction of positive symptoms, whereas those in the befriending group did not.