Classifying Schizophrenia

Question 1

Positive symptoms-Hallucinations

Answer 1

Auditory-Voices, comenting on actions, can be distressing
-Visual-seeing things that arent there- faces or people

Question 1

Positive symptom-Delusions

Answer 1

-Can have delusions of grandeur, e.g thinking they are an important figure like Jesus
-Delusions of persecution, e.g being watched, followed or plotted to be harmed.

Question 2

Negative symptoms-Avolition

Answer 2

-Social withdrawal, lack of emotion, low hygiene, motivation etc.

Question 3

Negative symptoms-disorganised thought

Answer 3

-Speech poverty, problems with thinking and talking.

Question 4

Issues with diagnosis: Reliability

Answer 4

-Consistency of diagnosis, degree to which two physicians end up with the same diagnosis using the same classification, schizophrenia diagnosis needs to be reliable to be valid

Question 5

Reliability-Beck/Jacobsen

Answer 5

-In the 1960s, research by Beck showed low reliability of diagnosis, 54% concordance rate
Jacobsen found a 98% concordance rate in 2005 suggesting reliability has improved over time.

Question 6

Validity of diagnosis

Answer 6

Accuracy of diagnosis, degree to which it is measuring a distinguished disorder

Question 7

Rosenhan

Answer 7

-Sucessfully got 8 pseudo patients admitted and diagnosed for schizophrenia into a mental hospital, suggests low validity as they cant tell between real and pseudo patients

Question 8

Symptom Overlap

Answer 8

May reduce accuracy of diagnosis, e.g if someone has depression its hard to tell if they have negative symptoms because of overlap

Question 9

Cultural Relativism

Answer 9

-Afro-carribeans are more likely to get diagnosed with schizophrenia-ethnocentrism

Question 10

Implications of innacurate classification

Answer 10

-Misdiagnosis-Leads to wrong medication which may cause harm, side effects and worsen conditions, even suicide

-Economic burden (greater NHS pressure -giving treatment that isnt needed or working or making disorder worse)