Schizophrenia: Classification Of Schizophrenia

Question 1

What is classification?

Answer 1

Refers to the process of describing the symptoms of schizophrenia.

Question 2

What are the current widely classified mental disorders?

Answer 2

1. The international classification for diseases produced by the world health organisation.
2. The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders produced by the American psychiatric association.

These are both diagnostic tools.

Question 3

How is Schizophrenia classified?

Answer 3

It is classified by the combination of positive and negative symptoms.

Question 4

What are the positive symptoms of schizophrenia?

Answer 4

• They reflect and excess or distortion of normal psychological functioning.
  1. Hallucinations are sensory experiences of stimuli that have either no basis in reality or are distorted perceptions of things that are there.
  They can be experienced in relation to any sensory modality (eg, sight, sound and smell). Auditory hallucinations are the most commmon type of hallucinations.
  2. Delusions are bizarre beliefs that seem too real to the person with schizophrenia but are at odds with reality. To be classified as a delusion, the belief must be: at odds with reality, incorrigible (meaning a person cannot be persuaded otherwise) and idiosyncratic (belief is viewed as abnormal).

Question 5

What are the negative symptoms of schizophrenia?

Answer 5

• These are deficits of normal emotional responses, or of other thought processes.
  1. Avolition — a reduction of interests or desires, as well as an inability to initiate and persist in goal directed behaviour. This includes neglecting routine activities, like school or work and staying at home for long periods of time.
  2. Speech poverty: a reduction in the amount of speech and quality pf speech being low. Their answers to questions may lack spontaneous content or fail to answer the questions.

Question 6

What is a similarity between the systems of classification?

Answer 6

• Both systems consider the positive symptoms as more important. As they say it’s not possible to diagnose a person with schizophrenia using only negative symptoms.

Question 7

What is a difference between them DSM and ICD?

Answer 7

• DSM: Requires a six-month duration of symptoms for the diagnosis of
schizophrenia, including at least one month of active-phase symptoms.
• ICD: The required duration of symptoms is shorter for the ICD, with a minimum of one month of characteristic symptoms