Schizophrenia co-morbidity

Co- morbidity

• Two or more conditions occur together.

• One issue which impacts the reliability and validity of a diagnosis is comorbidity.

One example of comorbidity

• Buckley et al. (2009) concluded that around ½ of patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia also have a diagnosis of:

- Repression (50%)

- Or substance abuse (47%)

- Post-traumatic stress disorder also occurred in 29% of cases

- And OCD in 23%

Why is comorbidity an issue? What could it lead to?

It is an issue for the diagnosis and classification of schizophrenia.

• Different diagnoses could be given for the same person, e.g. diagnosed with schizophrenia in one instance and then bipolar in another instance - or both conditions.

• This issue could lead to inconsistencies in diagnoses between clinicians in relation to which disorder is diagnosed - creating problems for the reliability of diagnosis.

It is also an issue for the classification of schizophrenia.

• Having simultaneous disorders suggests that schizophrenia may not actually be a seperate disorder.

• A consequence is that it lowers the (descriptive) validity of schizophrenia, which can make effective treatment for it difficult to achieve.

A. When a person has two or more disorders at the same time.

B. When two different disorders have a symptom in common

A. Co-morbidity.

B. System overlap.