schizophrenia - evaluation

Question 1

culture bias

Answer 1

• tendency to over-diagnose members of other cultures as
  suffering from schizophrenia
• African Americans and English people of Afro-Caribbean origin are several times more likely than white people to be diagnosed with schizophrenia
• validity of the diagnosis is poor = confounded by cultural beliefs and behaviors in patients, or by a racist distrust of black patients on the part of mental health practitioners.

Question 2

gender bias

Answer 2

• diagnostic criteria to be applied differently to males and females
• women = under-diagnosed suggests that the validity of the diagnosis of schizophrenia
  is poor, because the procedures for diagnosis
  work well only on patients of one gender.

Question 3

symptom overlap

Answer 3

• schizophrenia and bipolar disorder for example involve positive symptoms like
  delusions and negative symptoms like
  avolition
• questions validity and the classification and the diagnosis of schizophrenia
• ICD = might receive a diagnosis of schizophrenia, however many of the same
  patients would receive a diagnosis of bipolar
  disorder under DSM criteria.

Question 4

co morbidity

Answer 4

• Co-morbidity is the occurrence of two illnesses or conditions together
• conditions occur together a lot of the time then this calls
  into question the validity of their diagnosis and classification because they might actually be a single condition
  real life have complex problems and multiple
  problems rather single problems or problems one at a time
  like in a textbook

Schizophrenia is commonly diagnosed with other conditions -
Patients with schizophrenia may also have issues with
substance abuse, PTSD or OCD.

Mental health tends to be a complex area not a simple one.