Schizophrenia

• Schizophrenia

  A type of psychosis where a patient experiences a 'split from reality'
• The term 'schizophrenia' originates from the Greek "Schizo" meaning split and "Phren meaning mind
• 1 in 100 people in the UK are diagnosed with Schizophrenia, most between ages 15-35 with males and females equally affected
• Positive symptoms


  Individual demonstrates behaviours in addition to normal behaviours
• Positive symptoms


  • Hallucination, including formication where individual feels small insects crawing under skin
  • Delusions, including paranoid delusions false belief that govemment is tracking everything you say and do
  • Disordered thinking, conversation jumps from one topic to another, frustrating for individual and difficult to communicate with them
• Negative symptoms


  Prevent individual from demonstrating normal behaviours
• Negative symptoms


  • Alogia - reduced amount of speech
  • Avolition - display lack of interest and does not want to take part in activities they once enjoyed
  • Anhedonia - lack of positive emotion to pleasurable experiences
  • Flatness of affect - appears to have no emotion or facial expressions when conversing
  • Catatonic behaviour - can range from repetitive movements to none at all
• In ICD-10 there were various subtypes of schizophrenia which could be diagnosed based on main symptoms displayed - paranoid, disorganised and catatonic. However, these subtypes have now been removed in ICD-11
• The ICD-10 is used in the UK and Europe when diagnosing mental illnesses such as schizophrenia
• Symptoms must be present most of the time for at least one month to make a diagnosis of schizophrenia
• The individual must display at least one of the major symptoms of schizophrenia, which include auditory hallucinations, thought insertion, thought broadcasting and delusions for a diagnosis
• There are also minor symptoms which can result in a diagnosis, such as hallucination of any type (e.g. visual, olfactory), disorganised speech, catatonic behaviour and negative symptoms, but the individual must display at least two of these symptoms simultaneously