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Psychology > Schizophrenia > Flashcards

Schizophrenia Flashcards

1
Q

What is schizophrenia (sz)?

A

Thought process disorder characterised by disruption to a person’s perceptions, emotions and beliefs

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2
Q

What are the 2 types of onset sz?

A

Acute or chronic

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3
Q

What’s acute sz?

A

sudden onset where behaviours changes within a few days

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4
Q

What’s chronic sz?

A

Gradual deterioration in mental health that develops slowly overtime

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5
Q

When do males vs females develop sz?

A

In males late teens or early 20’s, females 4-5 yrs later

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6
Q

Overall what % of the population suffer from sz?

A

0.5%

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7
Q

Name 5 clinical characteristics of sz?

A

Perceptual symptoms, social symptoms, cognitive symptoms, affective symptoms and behavioural symptoms

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8
Q

What is meant by the clinical characteristics of perceptual symptoms?

A

Auditory hallucinations, people often hear voices saying abusive things and sometimes people hear and see things that aren’t there

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9
Q

What are auditory hallucinations?

A

Hearing things that aren’t there, they are the most common type of hallucination in sz

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10
Q

What is meant by the clinical characteristics of social symptoms?

A

Social withdrawal and people might be aloof or avoid eye contact

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11
Q

What is social withdrawal?

A

not taking part in or enjoying social situations

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12
Q

What is meant by the clinical characteristics of cognitive symptoms?

A

Delusions, delusions of control and language impairments

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13
Q

What are delusions?

A

Believing things that aren’t true people have delusions of paranoia and persecution where they believe people are out to get them

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14
Q

What are delusions of control?

A

When they believe that their behaviour is being controlled by someone else

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15
Q

What are language impairments?

A

Irrelevant and incoherent speech, might show signs of cognitive distractibility where they can’t maintain a train of thought

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16
Q

What is meant by the clinical characteristics of affective symptoms?

A

Avolition, lack of interest in hygiene and personal care, lack of emotion and inappropriate emotions

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17
Q

What is meant by avolition?

A

a lack of drive, motivation or interest in achieving goals

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18
Q

What is meant by the clinical characteristics of behavioural symptoms?

A

Stereotyped behaviour, psychomotor disturbance

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19
Q

What is meant by stereotyped behaviour?

A

Continuously repeating actions which are often strange and don’t have a purpose

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20
Q

What is meant by psychomotor disturbance?

A

Not having control of your muscles people may experience catalonia where they sit in an awkward position for a long time

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21
Q

what are positive symptoms?

A

Where people experience certain behaviors that are extra and not normally there

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22
Q

what are negative symptoms?

A

where people don’t display normal behaviors which are normally there

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23
Q

give 2 examples of positive symptoms of sz?

A

hallucinations, delusions, jumbled speech and disorganized behavior

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24
Q

give 2 examples of negative symptoms of sz?

A

speech poverty, lack of emotion, avolition and lack of ability to function normally

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25
Q

What is descriptive validity?

A

How similar individuals diagnosed with the disorder are

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26
Q

What is aetiological validity?

A

how similar the cause of the disorder is for each sufferer

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27
Q

What is predictive validity?

A

how useful the diagnostic categories are for predicting the right treatment

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28
Q

What are some of the main issues with reliability of diagnosing sz?

A

It may be affected by cultural bias, over diagnosis in West Indian patients in Bristol suggesting symptoms of ethnic minority have been misinterpreted. Also between countries 69% seen to have sz in America but only 2% in Britain in the same patients also due to gender bias 56% diagnosed the male only 20% diagnosed the women when have the same symptoms

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29
Q

What are the main problems with the validity of diagnosis sz?

A

Rosenhan (1973) conducted a study where people with no mental health conditions got themselves admitted to a psychiatric ward saying they heard voices and became pseudopatients once admitted they behaved normally but one girl was writing in a diary and the staff labelled it as writing behaviour questioning the validity as once someone is labelled with a mental disorder any behaviour can be interpreted to cause and effect. Symptom overlap can cause issues

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30
Q

What’s co-morbidity and what problem can it cause?

A

Co-morbidity can be an issue in making a reliable and valid diagnosis of sz as it means having 2+ conditions at the same time e.g depressions and sz having 2 makes it hard to distinguish between them

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31
Q

What is meant by genetic factors of sz?

A

Being genetically related to someone with sz can significantly increase a persons chances of developing it. Family and twin studies have looked at concordance rates

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32
Q

What is evidence for the genetic factors playing a part in getting sz?

A

Shields (1962) found MZ twins raised in different families still showed around 50% concordance adoption studies found that if children are adopted because one or both of their biological parents has sz chances of them developing it stays the same showing genetics are more significant than environment

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33
Q

What is evidence against the genetic factors playing a part in getting sz?

A

No study has found an100% concordance rate between MZ twins, so sz can’t just be caused by genes. Shared environment may cause higher concordance rates in family studies as children imitate sz behaviours so other factors can be considered

34
Q

What are biochemical factors in getting sz?

A

Post-morten sans PET scans have shown that people with sz have abnormally high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Leading to the dopamine hypothesis stating the synapse that uses dopamine as a neurotransmitter Are over active in the brains of people with schizophrenia

35
Q

What’s the evidence for biochemical factors causing schizophrenia?

A

Antipsychotic drugs, reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia by blocking, dopamine, receptors, suggesting that it’s the overactive dopamine receptor, causing the symptoms. Drugs, like amphetamines, which increase dopamine function can cause sz like symptoms in those without sz

36
Q

What’s the evidence against biochemical factors causing schizophrenia?

A

Antipsychotic drugs only work on the positive symptoms of increased dopamine function and doesn’t explain negative symptoms, such as social withdrawal. The link with dopamine is correlational. So it doesn’t show cause-and-effect meaning that increase dopamine function may be a symptom of schizophrenia, rather than a cause

37
Q

What’s a neurological factor of getting schizophrenia?

A

Neural correlates such as abnormal brain structure could explain schizophrenia

38
Q

What is the evidence for neurological factors, causing schizophrenia?

A

Johnstone eat al (1976) Compared the size of ventricles in the brains of people with schizophrenia with the brains of those without. They found that the people with schizophrenia had enlarged ventricles, which suggests that it is linked to a reduction in the temporal and frontal lobe volume.
Buchsbaum’s (1990) MRI scans on the brain of people with schizophrenia found abnormalities in the pre-frontal

39
Q

The evidence against neurological factors, causing schizophrenia?

A

People without schizophrenia can also have enlarged ventricles showing the relationship isn’t that simple. These findings are correlational, so they don’t show cause-and-effect that means that the abnormal brain structure may be a symptom of schizophrenia rather than cause.

40
Q

What’s the evolutionary explanation for sz?

A

Evolutionary explanations of schizophrenia suggest that there must’ve been an advantage to having it for it to remain in the population. One evolutionary idea is that people diagnosed with it today share similar characteristics to Shamans in the past. They were likely to lead people to split off from the group when it got too big, starting new.

41
Q

What is the evidence for the evolutionary explanation of schizophrenia?

A

There is such a strong genetic link to schizophrenia that there must’ve been some form of evolutionary explanation

42
Q

What is the evidence against the evolutionary explanation for schizophrenia?

A

There is little evidence, and the theory is difficult to prove

43
Q

Schizophrenia can be caused by psychological factors, name the three?

A

Family dysfunction, cognitive explanations and socio-cultural factors

44
Q

In terms of psychological factors for sz, explain family dysfunction?

A

One idea is that a cold and dominant schizophrenogenic mother can create conflict causing sz. Another idea is Bateson’s double-blind theory which suggests that faulty communication in families could lead to contradictory messages for children and cause sz. Expressed emotion environments contain high levels of hostility and criticism towards the person. It’s been found in dysfunctional families and correlate with relapse and people with sz.

45
Q

What is the evidence for family dysfunction, causing schizophrenia?

A

Other research investigating the role of family and schizophrenia supports the theory. E.g Lidz et al (1958), investigated families and proposed that dysfunctions such as emotionally distant parents and unequal marriages could have had an impact on the children and family, leading to sz.

46
Q

What’s the evidence against family dysfunction, causing schizophrenia?

A

The theory ignores the biological evidence of schizophrenia and put the blame on family and parents most of the studies into affect your family dysfunction retrospective and the family is well only studied after sz had developed and so it could have been the condition It’s self disrupting family life.

47
Q

In terms of psychology factors what is the cognitive explanation of sz?

A

Cognitive psychologists argued that schizophrenia is caused by a dysfunction for processing, leading to delusions, thought interference, language impairment and memory problems

48
Q

What’s the evidence for the cognitive explanation in terms of schizophrenia?

A

Neufeld (1978) Compared the cognitive processes of people with schizophrenia with a control group. Participants with schizophrenia took longer to encourage stimuli and showed short-term memory problems. This suggests their ability to process information was impaired. It was also found that people with schizophrenia that in a memory and reasoning task showing reduced activity in the area of a brain associated with this.

49
Q

What’s the evidence against cognitive explanation of schizophrenia?

A

Biochemical research suggests that cognitive problems are caused by increased dopamine function rather than faulty information processing. So the faulty information processing may be a result from increased dopamine levels meaning it’s a symptom not a cause of schizophrenia. Cognitive explanations don’t exclusively explain the cause and it might be linked to biological explanations

50
Q

In terms of schizophrenia explanations, what are socio-cultural factors?

A

The social causation hypothesis states that people with low social status and more likely to suffer from schizophrenia than people with higher social status. It’s thought that Factors like poverty and indiscrimination cause high stress levels and that this can cause schizophrenia

51
Q

What is the evidence for the social causation hypothesis?

A

Harrison et al (2001) Found that people who were born in deprived areas are more likely to develop schizophrenia suggesting that factors such as poverty, unemployment and crowding have an impact on schizophrenia

52
Q

What is the evidence against the social causation hypothesis?

A

These results are correlational, so they don’t show cause-and-effect. The social drift hypothesis suggests that there are more people with schizophrenia and deprived areas because having schizophrenia gives them a lower social status, meaning they may be unemployed

53
Q

What is the diathesis stress model able to do, why is it different to a interactionist approach?

A

Combine biological and psychologically of factors. It’s attempts to explain schizophrenia by reducing it down into the simplest smallest compounds possible, such as genetics neurotransmitters, and parts of the brain and interactionist approach does the opposite I am assuming that processes interact with each other to cause behavior

54
Q

What does the Diathesis-stress model propose?

A

Proposes that people who are biologically vulnerable to developing a mental disorder, may be more likely to develop it if they are subjected to certain Social environmental stressors. Lots of research has been conducted in this area. The fact that concordance rates in twin studies aren’t 100% in indicates that that does seem to be some genetic link but other factors must play a role also

55
Q

In what four ways can schizophrenia be treated?

A

Biological, cognitive , token economies, and interactionist approach

56
Q

Does the biological approach to treating schizophrenia involve?

A

Drug therapy’s

57
Q

What are drug therapies based on?

A

Play some dope mean hypothesis the theory that schizophrenia is linked to increase dopamine activity in the brain. Antipsychotic drugs work by blocking dopamine receptors

58
Q

What are the two types of antipsychotics?

A

Typical and atypical

59
Q

Explain what is meant by typical antipsychotics?

A

Typical antipsychotics were developed in the 1950s And act on dopamine receptors. Although they are still used to treat schizophrenia today they are less widely used due to the side effects. This is because they mainly appear to only treat positive symptoms and their side effects can be severe

60
Q

What are some of the main side effects of typical antipsychotics?

A

Dry mouth, blurred vision, dizziness, muscle spasms, or cramps and tremors

61
Q

Explain What atypical antipsychotics do

A

They work on serotonin and dopamine receptors nowadays people are most often prescribed atypical anti-psychotic drugs instead. They were developed in the 1950s and introduced in the 1970s as a result of the adverse effects of typical antipsychotics. In atypical antipsychotics both positive and negative symptoms, but they can also have severe side effects.

62
Q

What are some of the main advantages of drug therapies when treating schizophrenia?

A

Drug therapy is often effective at reducing positive symptoms for a large number of patients with schizophrenia. Meaning that more people can live in a community rather than being institutionalized it’s widely used and effective form of treatment almost all treatments are alongside the drugs

63
Q

What are some of the main negatives for drug therapies treating schizophrenia?

A

Not effective for treating negative symptoms like a social withdrawal.
Some ethical issues surrounding the use of drug therapies are some argue that drugs are a chemical straitjacket and it doesn’t really help the patient. It just controls that behavior to make it more socially acceptable and easier to manage. Most people will experience some short term side effects, when taking them such as a dry mouth and weight gain but long-term effects include risk of diabetes.
It’s found in clinical trials that 2/3 of people stop taking them due to the side effects
It only treats the symptoms of sz not the cause

64
Q

When treating schizophrenia, what is the cognitive behavioral therapy based on?

A

The assumption that patients can be helped by identifying and changing their faulty cognitions

65
Q

What’s one of the main techniques of CBT?

A

Ellis’s ABC model, cognitive restructuring can occur by patient, identifying the activating event, exploring their beliefs and recognizing the consequences.

66
Q

Apart from Ellis’s ABC model, what else are patients asked to do in cognitive behavioral therapy?

A

Encouraged to reality test the hallucinations and delusions with the aim of reducing their distress levels
Push to challenge their beliefs and question where the voices have originated from
Encourage to use strategies such as positive self talk to help themselves
Do you role-play exercises and homework to test out the faulty, thinking and are helped to see the consequences of thinking differently

67
Q

Who studied CBT in 1969?

A

Chadwick et al

68
Q

What are the advantages of CBT when treating sz?

A

Sensky et al (2000) found that CBT was effective in treating patients with schizophrenia who hadn’t responded to drug treatments. It was helpful with positive and negative symptoms and patient continued to improve nine months after treatment had ended. CBT put patients in charge of their own treatment by teaching them self health strategies. Meaning, there are fewer ethical issues than other therapies.

69
Q

What are the disadvantages of using CBT to treat schizophrenia?

A

CBT only treat the symptoms and doesn’t address the cause of the disorder and it’s difficult to measure the effectiveness of CBT because it relies on self report from the patient and therapists opinions making it less objective.
Patients can become independent on the therapist and it’s very time sensitive so dropout rates can be high when people have severe symptoms and the style of CBT doesn’t work for everyone

70
Q

What is the aim of family therapy?

A

To reduce conflict and high emotion amongst family members

71
Q

How can conflict be reduced amongst family members in family therapy.

A

Helping the family form alliances, reduce the burden of care, limit outbursts of anger and encourage realistic goals

72
Q

What are the advantages of family therapy?

A

It’s experienced some success, Pilling eat al (2002) found family therapy reduced the rate of readmission in some patients with sz.
It is particularly useful in patients what lack insight into their own condition or who can’t coherently explain thoughts

73
Q

what are the disadvantages of family therapy?

A

Getting informed consent from all family members can be hard, also issues of confidentiality which need addressed.
Families need to be engaged and open to change behaviour not every family will be

74
Q

What is a token economy based on?

A

Behavioural treatments for sz are based on operant conditioning (learning through reinforcement)

75
Q

What does a token economy help to do?

A

Help encourage people in psychiatric institutions to preform socially desirable behaviours, patients are given token which can be exchanged for something they want e.g sweets

76
Q

Who studied token economy in a psychiatric ward in 1968? (2 people)

A

Ayllon and Azrin (1968)

77
Q

What are the advantages of token economies?

A

Can produce significant improvements in self care and desirable behaviours even with chronic institutionalised people with sz.
work best in institutions, as those within them often lose motivation to care for themselves, which is smth token economies directly address

78
Q

What are the disadvantages of token economies?

A

Low ecological validity, don’t transfer into the real world
Patients behaviour may be superficial, only doing it when receiving a token
Ethical issues, doesn’t really help the patients just makes behaviour more acceptable to others

79
Q

What is an interactional approach to treat sz?

A

Uses a combination of approaches to explain the behaviour, treatment should involve biological, psychological and cognitive therapies. E.g many people forget to take medication or stop due to side effected indicating something else must be done alongside it

80
Q

What are the advantages for treating sz using an interactionist approach?

A

Since not one treatment seems to work exclusively to treat/manage sz it makes sense to vary
Using psychological therapy terms alongside drug therapies allows the patient to manage their behavioural symptoms and provide them with some of the skills to tackle the condition and challenge any functions

81
Q

What’s the main disadvantages for treating schizophrenia with a interactionist approach?

A

It’s difficult to know when the treatment is working
People with severe symptoms of schizophrenia are likely to need higher levels of medication and often have another willingness to try new things or learn new social skills
Therefore treatments need to be appropriate and flexible to the needs of the patient at the time you can get very complicated and time-consuming as the patient may need to take medication undergo family therapies and cognitive therapies but also have some social support

Psychology (12 decks)

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