Classification of SZ.

Question 1

Outline- How is schizophrenia classified

Answer 1

ICD-10 (world health organisation) - requires two or more negative symptoms for diagnosis.

DSM-5 (American) - require only 1 positive symptom e.g. Delusions and hallucinations.

Question 2

Outline- Positive symptoms

Answer 2

Hallucinations- seeing or hearing things that are not related to reality.
Delusions- Also known as paranoia. They are irrational beliefs. E.g someone may believe that they are very important people such as Jesus.

Question 3

Outline- Negative symptoms

Answer 3

Avolition- finding it hard to keep up with goal directed activity. E.g. Actions performed to achieve a result (revising for exams)
Speech poverty- a reduction in the quality of speech such as slurred speech or poor flowing of speech.

Question 4

Evaluation- reliability

Answer 4

Reliability- the consistency of results which doesn’t occur with diagnosis of SZ.
Cheniaux et al (2009)- 2 psychiatrists diagnosing SZ independently from one another (100 in total together)
Psychiatrist 1- diagnosed 26 (DSM-5), 44 (ICD-10)
Psychiatrist 2- diagnosed 13 (DSM-5), 24 (ICD-10)
Poor consistency= poor reliability.

Question 5

Evaluation- symptom overlap

Answer 5

Buckley et al
Found- over half of patients also have another diagnosis of something else because…
there’s an overlap in symptoms between SZ and bipolar depression (positive symptoms, delusions and negative symptoms, avolition).
- so - people may receive incorrect treatment for the wrong problem which they don’t have.