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A level psychology aqa schizophrenia
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A-level PsychologyPAPER 1 PAPER 2 PAPER 3
a. Social influence a. Approaches a. Issues and debates
b. memory b. Biopsychology b. Relationships
c. Attachment c. Research methods c. Schizophrenia
d. Psychopathology d. Aggression
SCHIZOPHRENIA
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder, characterised by:
1. Hallucinations - means perceiving things that aren’t real and it can involve any of
the five senses (hearing voices, smelling things or feeling sensations on the skin).
2. Delusions - irrational beliefs about the world that are firmly held onto (being famous).
3. Avolition - persistent lack of motivation or energy to complete normal, everyday
tasks.
4. Speech poverty - lack of spontaneous, unprompted speech or minimal speech
(responding in few words).
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SYMPTOMS
Positive symptoms have been added to a person’s everyday experiences -
hallucinations and delusions.
Negative symptoms involve an absence of experiences that people normally have -
avolition and speech poverty.
RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY IN
SCHIZOPHRENIA DIAGNOSIS
According to the DSM a person to be diagnosed with schizophrenia has to display at least
two of the main symptoms persistent for at least 6 months.
A diagnosis is reliable if a patient whose symptoms remain the same, different doctors give
the same diagnosis consistently. For different patients with the same symptoms, one
doctor gives all patients the same diagnosis consistently.
A diagnosis is valid if the criteria used to make the diagnosis allow to correctly identify
people who have a particular illness. The doctor doesn’t incorrectly diagnose people who
don’t have a particular illness.
, Inter-rater reliability is when multiple people make the same measurement, to see
how similar their measurements are, which can be used to measure the reliability of a
diagnoses. if several doctors make the same diagnosis, the diagnoses become more
reliable. Researchers use inter-rater reliability to assess the reliability of a diagnosis of
schizophrenia. Aaron Beck (1962) found that the diagnoses made by doctors were 52%
similar, therefore often the diagnoses lacked reliability. However, measures of inner rater
reliability (2005), found that diagnoses of schizophrenia were 81% similar, suggesting that
the reliability of diagnoses for schizophrenia is getting better over time.
Rosenhan (1973) got 8 volunteers with no mental health problems to go to mental health
institutions and told them to pretend they were hearing voices, once admitted they started
behaving normally. Even normal behaviours were perceived as abnormal, the first volunteer
was released after 7 days and the last after 52 days. The doctors in Rosenhan’s study gave
the volunteers a diagnosis of schizophrenia when they were actually mentally healthy -
therefore the diagnosis of schizophrenia lacked validity.
4 main issues reduce the validity and reliability of schizophrenia diagnosis:
Cultural bias - doctors diagnose Cochrane (1977), conducted a review
schizophrenia relying on social norms from comparing the number of people diagnosed
their own culture to decide whether a with schizophrenia in the Caribbean and in
patient’s behaviours match symptoms of Britain. The overall rate of schizophrenia
schizophrenia. This means that doctors was similar in the Caribbean and in Britain.
might be more likely to diagnose someone Afro-Caribbean people living in Britain were
from another culture with a mental disorder. 7 times more likely to be diagnosed with
Also, the same patient might get a different schizophrenia, concluding that they were
diagnosis, depending on the cultural being overdiagnosed with schizophrenia
background of their doctor. (Ethnocentric due to cultural biases doctors in Britain
bias is when someone assumes that other were judging the patients using the social
cultures behave the same as their own) norms and values of their own culture.
This reduces the reliability of the
diagnosis. Since using the criteria from the
DSM a doctor might incorrectly diagnose a
patient it lacks validity. Cultural bias can
lead to an overdiagnosis of patients from a
different culture to the doctor’s own culture.
Gender bias - when the difference Loring and Powell (1988) gave male
between men and women is and female doctors identical descriptions of
misrepresented. Doctors can display alpha a patient’s symptoms but varied the
bias by over-exaggerating the differences patient’s gender. When the patient was
in men's and women’s behaviour, or display described as female, 20% of doctors
beta bias by ignoring real differences diagnosed the patient with schizophrenia.
between men and women, causing men When the patient was described as male,
and women to be misdiagnosed. 56% of doctors diagnosed the patient with
schizophrenia. This indicates there may be
Patients with the same symptoms might get alpha bias in the diagnosis of
different diagnoses depending on their schizophrenia.
gender, reducing the reliability of the
diagnosis. If the criteria used to diagnose
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