Schizophrenia

• Symptoms experienced in addition to normal experiences

  Positive symptoms
• Examples of positive symptoms include: hallucinations and

  delusions
• Symptoms that are the loss of an experience

  Negative symptoms
• Examples of negative symptoms include: poverty of speech and avolition
• Schizophrenia affects one in 100 people at some point in their lives (1%)
• Men tend to show symptoms in their teens and 20s, while women tend to show symptoms in their 30s and 40s
• People with schizophrenia are far more likely to harm themselves, or to be violent towards the public
• A person with schizophrenia is 100 times more likely to kill themselves
• 40% of people with schizophrenia attempt suicide at least once
• To be diagnosed, a patient must show several types of abnormal behaviour
• MZ twins have a higher concordance rate than DZ twins
• Must have one positive symptom present to diagnose


  DSM
• Must have two or more negative symptoms present to diagnose


  ICD
• SZ could be over diagnosed in the ICD, or under diagnosed in the DSM
• Soderberg et al (2005)

  Concordance rate of 81% using the DSM. The DSM is regarded as more reliable than the ICD because the symptoms for each category are more specific
• Nilsson et al (2000)

  Concordance rate of 60% using the ICD, which implies that the DSM is more reliable
• Two symptoms co-exist alongside each other


  Co-morbidity
• A person suffering from ___ might also suffer from another condition at the same time

  Co-morbidity
• Buckley (2009)

  When looking at co-morbidity in Schizophrenia patients: 50% had depression, 47% abused substances, 29% has PTSD and 23% had OCD
• When diagnosing, it might be that schizophrenia looks a lot like severe depression and vice-versa
• When two or more conditions share the same symptoms

  Symptom overlap
• Patients who suffer from bipolar also experience hallucinations, delusions and avolition
• Ellason + Ross

  People with DID have more schizophrenic symptoms than people diagnosed with schizophrenia
• Ketter (2005)

  Misdiagnosis due to symptom overlap can lead to years of delay in receiving relevant treatment
• Some patients improve with treatment, others don’t
• Copeland

  Gave a description of a patient to doctors in the US and the UK. 69% of US doctors diagnosed the patient with schizophrenia, whereas 2% of UK doctors did
• Hearing voices may be more acceptable in African cultures because of cultural beliefs
• Loving + Powell (1988)

  Randomly selected 290 male and female psychiatrists two case studies of patient behaviour. When the patients were described as male or no information was given about their gender, 56% were diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, when the patients were described as female, 20% were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The gender bias was not evident with female psychiatrists
• Antipsychotics are the most common treatment for schizophrenia. They can be taken as tablets, syrups or injections
• Typical antipsychotics work as dopamine antagonists, they act against the dopamine by blocking the D2 receptors on the post synaptic neuron
• Atypical antipsychotics target a range of neurotransmitters, including glutamate and serotonin. It can improve mood and reduces depression and anxiety in patients, which improves cognitive functioning
• Atypical antipsychotics are only taken when other antipsychotics have been ineffective, because they can cause fatal blood conditions