Word A Day (schizophrenia) Flashcards
Schizophrenia
A severe mental disorder where contact with reality and insight is impaired. How it is classified differs between different classifications systems (DSM-V and ICD-11)
Classification of mental disorder
The process of organising symptoms into clusters based on which symptoms occur together, in order to define what is involved in an illness, ie. Defining what a mental illness like schizophrenia is
Positive symptoms
Atypical symptoms experienced in addition to normal symptoms experience, eg. in schizophrenia they include hallucinations and delusions
Hallucinations
Positive symptom- extra sensory experiences that either have no basis in reality or distort an aspect of reality, they occur in all senses
Delusions
Positive symptom- beliefs with no basis in reality, such as paranoia, often lead to bizarre behaviour
Negative symptom
Atypical experiences that represent the loss of a usual experience, such as loss of clear motivation and speech poverty
Avolition
Negative symptom- severe loss of motivation, hard to keep up with goal directed activities eg. Hygiene and lack of persistence in work or education
Speech poverty
Negative symptom- changes in speech patterns involving a reduced frequency, quality and speed of speech
DSM-5
One of the major classifications used to diagnose mental illness
American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual edition 5
ICD-11
One of the major classifications systems used to diagnose mental illness
World Health Organisation’s International classification of Disease version 11
Reliability (in diagnosis)
Consistency in the diagnosis given to a patient
Low in schizophrenia
Validity (in diagnosis)
Diagnosis is ‘accurate’
Number of factors which mean a person may be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia or not
