Symptoms Of Schizophrenia Flashcards
What are positive symptoms and 2 examples of them.?
Positive symptoms = additional experiences beyond those of ordinary existence.
- Hallucinations = unusual sensory experiences that have no basis in reality. Experienced in relation to any sense.
- Delusions= beliefs that have no basis in reality - makes a person with sz behave in ways that make sense to them but bizarre to others.
What are negative symptoms and what are two examples of it?
Negative symptoms= loss of usual abilities and experiences
- Speech poverty - a reduction in the amount and quality of speech, can cause a delay in verbal responses.
- Avolition- severe loss of motivation to carry out everyday tasks. Results in lowered a activity levels and unwillingness to carry out goal directed
Behaviors.
What is co-morbidity and how is it linked to the evaluation of symptoms of schizophrenia?
Co-morbidity means more than one disorder is present at one time.
If conditions often co-occur then they might be a single condition. Schizophrenia is commonly diagnosed with other conditions. For example Buckley et al concluded that sz is co-morbid with depression / (50% of cases) _ substance abuse (47%) or OCD (23%.) suggesting schizophrenia may not exist as a distinct condition.
A further limitation is gender bias. What is gender vices and why is it a limitation?
Gender bias - one gender is treated less favourably than the other.
Men are more commonly diagnosed with schizophrenia than women. This may be because men are more genetically vulnerable or women have better social support, masking symptoms. Meaning women may be misdiagnosed and are not treated effectively.
What are two further limitations?
Culture bias - some symptoms for example hearing voices are accepted in some cultures like Afro cultures who ‘hear voices and messages’ from ancestors.
Afro-carribean British men are 10 times more likely to be diagnosed - meaning afro-corribean men living in the uk appear to be discriminated against by a culturally bias diagnostic system
Symptom overlap- there’s overlap between schizophrenia symptoms and other conditions eg BPD who also experience delusions and avolition meaning schizophrenia may not exist as a condition or it is really hard to diagnose.
