Schizophrenia

• 1% of population have schizophrenia
• Men are more likely to develop the disorder
• Positive symptoms


  • Hallucinations - additional sensory experiences e.g seeing distortions in objects that look like faces, hearing critical voices
  • Delusions - irrational beliefs about themselves or the world e.g feelings of persecution
  • Speech disorganisation - extreme cases
• Negative symptoms


  • Avolition - loss of normal motivation + energy, less sociable, less personal hygiene
  • Speech poverty - Loss of quality and quantity of verbal responses
• Hallucinations


  Additional sensory experiences e.g seeing distortions in objects that look like faces, hearing critical voices
• Delusions


  Irrational beliefs about themselves or the world e.g feelings of persecution
• Avolition


  Loss of normal motivation + energy, less sociable, less personal hygiene
• Speech poverty


  Loss of quality and quantity of verbal responses
• Beck (1963): 'Reviewed 153 patients who had been diagnosed by multiple doctors, found only 54% concordance rate between doctors assessments, therefore low inter-rater reliability in diagnosis of schizophrenia, suggests many people have been diagnosed incorrectly - potential inappropriate treatments'
• Co-morbidity


  Schizophrenia often diagnosed with other disorders, could lead to inaccurate diagnosis, may not be separate disorders when diagnosis occurs together
• Co-morbidity rates of schizophrenia - Buckley 2009


  • Depression 50%
  • Drug abuse 47%
  • PTSD 29%
  • OCD 23%
• Symptom overlap

  Shares symptoms with bipolar disorder e.g hallucinations and delusions, 2 disorders may not be distinct - should be redefined, undermines validity of diagnosis
• Lorring and Powell (1998): '290 psychiatrists with 2 identical case studies, researchers found over diagnosis of black case studies and under diagnosis of female case studies'
• Afro-Caribbean heritage in UK and African Americans up to 9 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia
• Gender differences in schizophrenia

  • Men more likely to suffer negative symptoms
  • Women more likely to suffer positive symptoms
  • Men diagnosed 5 years earlier on average
• Women's experience of schizophrenia taken less seriously than men due to woman's better social coping strategies