Schizophrenia Flashcards
(50 cards)
What is the diagnosis and classification of schizophrenia
-ICD 10: two or more negative symptoms must be present
-DSM 5: one positive symptom must be present
-Both editions have dropped subtypes as they tended to be inconsistent
Name the positive symptoms of schizophrenia
-Hallucinations
-Delusions
Name the negative symptoms of schizophrenia
-Speech poverty
-Avolition
What are hallucinations
-A positive symptom of schizophrenia
-They are sensory experiences that have either no basis in reality or are distorted perceptions of things that are there
What are delusions
-Positive symptom
-They involve beliefs that have no basis in reality for example a person believes that they are someone else or are a victim of a conspiracy
What is speech poverty
-Negative symptom
-Involves reduced freyquency and quality of speech
What is avolition
-Negative symptom
-Involves loss of motivation to carry out tasks and results in lowered activity levels
What is co-morbidity
-The occurrence of two disorders or conditions together eg person has both schizophrenia and a personality disorder
-Where two conditions meet frequently in diagnosis the validity of categorising the disorders separately is questioned
What is co-morbidity
-The occurrence of two disorders or conditions together eg person has both schizophrenia and a personality disorder
-Where two conditions meet frequently in diagnosis the validity of categorising the disorders separately is questioned
What is symptom overlap
-Two or more conditions share symptoms
-When conditions share many symptoms the validity of categorising the disorders separately is questioned
Evaluate the issues in diagnosis and classification of schizophrenia
-Good reliability: Osorio et al found a inter rarer reliability with 180 individuals of .97 and a test retest of .92
-Low validity: diagnosis of ICD 68 whilst only 39 under DSM suggests a limited criterion validity
-Co morbidity low as half those diagnosed with schizophrenia also had depression or substance abuses questioning that if schizophrenia is a distinct condition
-Men diagnosed more with schizophrenia on a ratio of 1.4:1 meaning women may not be receiving much needed treatment
-Cultural bias: afro caribbean people 9 times more likely to receive a diagnosis then white british people
-Symptom overlap with bipolar disorder
Name the different theories on schizophrenia caused by family dysfunction
-Schizophrenic mother
-Double bind theory
-Expressed emotion
What is the schizophrenogenic mother
-Propsed by Fromm Reichmann 1948
-Psychodynamic explanation
-A cold rejecting controlling mother creates a family environment of tension and secrecy
-This leads to mistrust causing paranoid delusions and schizophrenia
What is the double bind theory
-Bateson et al
-Developing child finds themselves trapped no wanting to do the wrong thing but does not know what this is through mixed messages as they cannot seek clarification
-Child is often punished by withdrawal of love
-Leads them confused and viewing the world as dangerous causing schizophrenia
What is expressed emotion
-Verbal criticism of the person accompanied occasionally by violence
-Hostility towards the person anger and aggression
-Emotional over involvement mainly needless self sacrifice
-These factors cause stress which causes people to relapse with schizophrenia
Name the two cognitive explanations of schizophrenia
-Metarepresentation dysfunction
-Central control dysfunction
What is metarepresentation dysfunction
-metrepresentation is the ability to reflect our own thoughts and behaviour
-When it becomes dysfunction we fail recognise these thoughts as our own and think they are someone else’s
-This explains hallucinations and delusions
What is central control dysfunction
-Central control is the ability to suppress automatic thoughts
-Dysfunction means that a patient cannot suppress all of the thoughts that trigger when hearing a word
-This leads to disorganised thoughts and speech
Evaluate family dysfunction as an explanation for schizophrenia
-Research support: read et al found that adults with schizophrenia are more likely to have an insecure attachment type and more likely to have a history of physical and sexual abuse
-Explanations lack support for schizophrogenic mother and double bind as they are based off clinical observations of people with schizophrenia and informal assessments with no lab based systematic evidence
-Parent blaming is damaging as it causes damage to mothers being shunned for their child’s schizophrenia causing damaging real world application COUNTERPOINT: useful in the development of family therapy as a treatment
Evaluate the cognitive explanations of schizophrenia
-Genetic factors of schizophrenia are not explored and undervalued
-Only a proximal explanation as it does not focus on what caused the symptoms in the first place
-Research support as stirling et al found participants with schizophrenia took twice as long completing a colour stroop test
What did gottesman find relating to the genetic risk of developing schizophrenia
-Identical twins 48% chance of developing
-Sibling 9% of developing SZ
-Aunt 2%
-General populations 1%
What are the candidate genes relating to schizophrenia
-SZ is polygenic
-most likely genes involved is coding for neutransmitters including dopamine
-Ripke found that 108 genetic variations were associated with risk of schizophrenia
-schizophrenia is aetiologically heterogeneous (different combinations of genes)
What is the role of mutations in schizophrenia
-schizophrenia can have a genetic origin in the absence of family history through gene mutation
-Brown found that risk of schizophrenia increased from 0.7% in fathers under 25 to 2% in fathers over 50
What are neural correlates
patterns of structure or activity in brain that occur in conjunction with an experience and may be implicated in the origins of that experience such as dopamine
