schizophrenia exam questions

Question 1

online one negative symptom of schizophrenia 2 marks

Answer 1

• speech poverty

- characterised by the lessening of speech fluency which reflects blocked thoughts

Question 2

outline 2 positive symptoms of schizophrenia 4 marks

Answer 2

• hallucinations
• unreal and bizarre perceptions of the individuals environment which can be visual, auditory or olfactory ( smelling things that others can’t smell)
• delusions
• strange beliefs that seem real to the individual. e.g. the belief that you are being spied upon

Question 3

outline the nature of speech poverty and avolition 4 marks

Answer 3

• speech poverty is the lessening of speech fluency and it is thought to reflect blocked thoughts
• those with speech poverty may produce fewer words in a given time as they have difficulty in spontaneously producing them
• avolition is a reduction of interest and a lack of a desire to have goal directed behaviour. Avolition comes from a poor social function

Question 4

briefly explain one problem that might arise when using symptoms to classify schizophrenia 2 marks

Answer 4

• many of the symptoms found in schizophrenic patients are also seen in other mental illnesses such as depression and OCD
• this means patients may receive other diagnoses as well as schizophrenia

Question 5

briefly outline one study in which the diagnoses of schizophrenia was investigated 2 marks

Answer 5

• Rosenhan sent ‘normal’ people to a psychiatric hospital who all claimed they were hearing voices.
• they were all diagnoses with schizophrenia and were admitted, but none of the staff recognised that they were normal
• this is no why patients have to be diagnosed by two doctors

Question 6

discuss reliability and / or validity in relation to the diagnosis and classification of schizophrenia 8 marks

Answer 6

• strength of validity = research support for gender bias in diagnosis. Loring - randomly selected male and female psychiatrists to read accounts of patients behaviour and judge them from diagnostic criteria.
• when patients describe as male or no info of gender , 56% of psychiatrists diagnosed them but this was only 20% for female patients. Supports that men diagnosed more than women
• reliability of diagnosis of schizophrenia has shown a cultural and racial difference.
• ethnic culture hypothesis states that ethnic minority groups experience less stress associated with mental illnesses.
• Brekke supported this. Studied 184 individuals with schizophrenia. African American, Latino or White American. non- minority groups members were consistently more symptomatic than members of the two ethnic minority groups
• supports that more individuals within a majority group culture are diagnosed with schizophrenia

Question 7

explain what is meant by the terms reliability and validity in the context of the classification and / or diagnosis of schizophrenia 4 marks

Answer 7

• reliability means consistency
• so a diagnoses of schizophrenia must be repeatable
• different clinicians must reach the same conclusion (inter-rater reliability ) or clinicians must be able to reach the same conclusions at two different points in time ( test retest reliability )
• validity refers to whether an observed effect is a genuine one so two or more conditions co occur with an schizophrenic patient e.g. substance abuse

Question 8

briefly outline family dysfunction as an explanation for schizophrenia 2 marks

Answer 8

• suggests that children who receive contradictory messages from their parents are more likely to develop schizophrenia
• also a high degree of expressed emotions within a family is associated with schizophrenia

Question 9

explain his family dysfunction might be involved in schizophrenia 4 marks

Answer 9

• it has been found that high expressed emotion relatives talk more and listen less
• high levels of expressed emotion are most likely to influence an increase in symptoms
• a patient whose family is high expressed emotion is four times more likely to relapse than a patient whose family is low in expressed emotion
• this shows how a high degree of expressed emotion is associated with schizophrenia

Question 10

evaluate the family dysfunction of schizophrenia 4 marks

Answer 10

• problem is the individual differences in vulnerability to EE
• not all patients with high EE families relapse, and not all patients who live in low EE homes avoid relapse.
• research has found individual differences in stress response to high EE behaviours
• it has been found that one quarter of the patients studied by Altorfer showed no physiological responses to stressful comments from relatives

Question 11

briefly outline one cognitive explanation of schizophrenia and a limitation of it 5 marks

Answer 11

• Alemon suggests that hallucination prone individuals find it difficult to distinguish between images and sensory based perception
• for these individuals, the inner representation of an idea can override the actual sensory stimulus and produce an auditory image that is every bit as real as the transmission of actual sound
• a problem with the cognitive explanation is that it only deals with one aspect of the disorder, the cognitive impairment but it fails to explain other aspects such as neurochemincal changes

Question 12

online one study that has investigated the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia 4 m

Answer 12

• autopsies have found that there are generally a large number of dopamine receptors and there was an increase in the amount of dopamine in the left amygdale and increased dopamine in the caudate nucleus
• this was found by Owe and Palkai
• supports the view that schizophrenia patients have high levels of dopamine receptors

Question 13

outline one study that has investigated the neural correlates of schizophrenia 4 m

Answer 13

• Patel used PET scans to assess dopamine levels in schizophrenia and normal individuals
• found that there was lower levels of dopamine in the dorsclateral prefrontal cortex in the schizophrenic patients compared to the normals
• supports the view that a deficit of dopamine in areas of the prefrontal cortex can cause negative symptoms of schizophrenia

Question 14

outline the biological approach to explaining schizophrenia 6 m

Answer 14

• the biological approach suggest that schizophrenia is a result of genetic material and that the illness is inherited
• evidence suggests that the closer the biological relationships, the greater the risk of developing schizophrenia
• research have found that first-degree relatives of those with schizophrenia are 18 times more at risk than the general population
• the COMPT gene has been associated with excess dopamine in specific D2 receptors which lead to positive symptoms of schizophrenia as well as episodes

Question 15

outline one study that has investigated the genetic explanations of schizophrenia 4 m

Answer 15

• Gotlesman did analysis of twin studies and found that there was a 48% concordance rate for identical twins and on,y 17% for non identical twins
• he also found that the concordance rate for identical twins brought up apart was similar for identical twins brought up together.
• this shows that it is not down to environmental factors but instead genes