schizophrenia: symptoms & features

Question 1

describe schizophrenia

Answer 1

• mental illness
• affects how someone speaks, thinks & feels
• may lose focus on reality

Question 2

define ‘symptom’

Answer 2

things that characterise a disorder with regard to how a person thinks, feels or behaves

Question 3

define ‘feature’

Answer 3

statistics or aspects about a disorder eg how the illness develops, or links to gender/age

Question 4

describe the symptoms of schizophrenia

Answer 4

• positive & negative
• positive = additions to behaviour, eg. hearing voices, delusions, hallucinations
• negative = normal functioning not present, eg. low mood, social withdrawal, loss of speech

Question 5

describe the diagnosis criteria for schizophrenia

Answer 5

• at least 1 month of active symptoms
• disturbance to everyday functioning for at least 6 months
• must have delusions, hallucinations or disorganised speech

Question 6

define ‘thought insertion’

Answer 6

a person thinks their own thoughts are put there by someone else

Question 7

define ‘hallucinations’

Answer 7

• seeing/hearing/feeling touched by etc things that are not there
• voices can be harsh and critical
• tells them what to do - often uncharacteristic acts

Question 8

define ‘delusions’

Answer 8

• false beliefs or thinking their movements are someone else - irrational
• paranoid
• grandeur
• persecution: thinking others are trying to plot against or harm them

Question 9

define ‘disordered thinking’

Answer 9

• difficulty putting thoughts into logical sense
• thought blocking: stopping mid sentence, ‘thought taken out of head’
• neologisms: making up meaningless words

Question 10

describe the features of schizophrenia

Answer 10

• prevalance: 0.3-0.7% likelihood of developing sz, males more likely to develop higher proportion of negative symptoms & have longer duration
• onset: late adolescence to mid thirties
• prognosis: 20% will respond well to treatment, 5-6% will die by suicide, 20% attempt
• co morbidity: co occurrence of 1+ disorder, life expectancy reduced due to medical conditions, anxiety, OCD

Question 11

define ‘psychosis’

Answer 11

separation from reality

Question 12

define ‘neurosis’

Answer 12

no separation from reality

Question 13

define ‘residual sz’

Answer 13

low level positive symptoms, psychotic symptoms present

Question 14

define ‘catatonic sz’

Answer 14

withdrawn & isolated, little physical movement

Question 15

define ‘disorganised sz’

Answer 15

disorganised speech, inappropriate moods for given situation, no hallucinations

Question 16

define ‘paranoid sz’

Answer 16

being suspicious of others, delusions of grandeur, hallucinations

Question 17

define ‘undifferentiated sz’

Answer 17

exhibits symptoms of sz but overall picture is not catatonic/paranoid etc