Schizophrenia Flashcards
What is schizophrenia?
- A mental disorder than affects 1% of the worlds population.
- It is commonly diagnosed in men, individuals that live in cities and working class individuals
How is schizophrenia classified?
ICD-10 and DSM-5
DSM-5
Recognises the positive symptoms of schizophrenia
What are the positive symptoms of schizophrenia?
Speech disorganisation, Delusions and Hallucinations
ICD-10
Recognises the negative symptoms
What are the negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
Avolition and Speech poverty
Positive Symptoms: Hallucinations
- Unusual sensory experiences which have no basis of reality or distorted perceptions of real things
- It is experienced in relation to sense
Examples of hallucinations?
Hearing voices and seeing people that are not really there.
Positive Symptoms: Delusions
Irrational beliefs- have no basis to reality. Therefore the person behaves in a way that makes sense to them but is bizarre to others
Examples of delusions?
- Delusions of being prosecuted
- Delusions about being a very important person or the victim of a conspiracy
Positive Symptoms: Speech disorganisation
Incoherent speech
Negative Symptoms: Speech Poverty
- There is a reduction in quality and quantity of speech.
- There is a delay in verbal responses during conversation
Negative Symptoms: Avolition
-Unwillingness to begin or complete a task. The individual looses motivation to carry out everyday tasks
What are the positive symptoms of schizophrenia?
Anderason (1982) identified three signs of avolition:
- poor hygiene and grooming,
- lack of persistence in work or education
- lack of energy
Issues in diagnosis
- Reliability
- Validity
- Co-morbidity
- Symptom overlap
Relliability
The extent to which the diagnosis of schizophrenia is consistent. An important measure of reliability is inter-rater reliability.
Inter rater reliability
The extent to which different assessors agree on the same diagnosis for patients
A03 Reliability:
P: Cheniaux et al (2009) had 2 psychiatrists independently diagnose 100 patients using the DSM and ICD
E: Inter rater reliability was poor . One psychiatrist diagnosed 26 with schizophrenia using the DSM and 44 using the ICD
E: The inconsistency between mental health professionals and different classification is a limitation of diagnosis
Validity
The extent to which the diagnosis of classification techniques measure what they are intended to measure
Name a standard way to measure validity in terms of schizophrenia?
Criterion validity
Criterion validity
Assessing the validity by considering the extent to which people do well on a test do well on other things that you would expect to be associated with the test
A03 Validity:
P: A standard way to measure validity is to use criterion validity
E: Cheniaux et al’s study shows that schizophrenia is much more likely to be diagnosed using the ICD than DSM.
E: This suggests that schizophrenia is either over-diagnosed in ICD or under-diagnosed in DSM. This is poor validity and is a weakness of diagnosis
Co-Morbidity
Occurrence of 2 illnesses together which may confuse diagnosis and treatment.
A03 Co-Morbidity:
P: Co-Morbidity is where 2 or more conditions occur together. If conditions occur together it questions whether it may just be one condition
E: Buckley et al (2009) found that half the schizophrenic patients were also diagnosed with depression (50%) and substance abuse (47%)
E: It confuses the validity of classification and diagnosis of schizophrenia. As we are unsure whether it is just one condition,
