schizophrenia and psychosis

What is psychosis?

A significant loss of contact with reality; the hallmark of schizophrenia.

What is schizophrenia?

A mental disorder characterized by major disturbances in thought, emotion, and behaviour.

What are the common presentations of schizophrenia?

Disordered thinking (ideas not logically related or faulty perception and attention), flat or inappropriate affect, and highly unusual motor activity.

How many hallmark symptoms does an individual need to have to be diagnozd with schizophrenia?

2 of the following:delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized speech and/or behaviour.

What are the two major classifications of symptoms that people wich schizophrenia have?

Positive and negative symptoms.

What are positive symptoms?

Positive symptoms are symptoms that are added on. They are classified as excess of and distortion in a typical range of behaviour and perception.

What are two example of positive symptoms?

Delusions and hallucinations.

What are delusions?

Erroneous beliefs with unusual content that are firmly held despite evidence.

What are hallucinations?

Sensory experiences that seem real despite there being no external stimulus.

What are negative symptoms?

Symptoms that involve a deficit of typically present behaviours, meaning symptoms that take away aspects of normal functioning.

What are example of negative symptoms?

Reduced expressive behaviour though alogia, flat affect, reduced motivation/pleasure through avolition, anhedonia, and antisociality.

What is alogia?

Minimal speech.

What is avolition?

Minimal goal directed activity.

Who has a poorer prognosis, people with negative or positive symptoms?

People with negative symptoms?

What are the primary types of delusions?

Thought insertion, brodcast thoughts, thought withdrawal, and made feelings.

What is thought insertion?

A delusion in which the individual believes someone put a thought or multiple thoughts into their head.

What is broadcast thought?

A delusion in which the individual believes someone can read their thoughts.

What is thought withdrawal?

A delusion in which the individual believes that someone took their thoughts and deleted them?

What is made feelings?

A delusion in which the individual believes that someone inserted an emotion/feeling into them.

What are the most common types of hallucinations?

Hearing voices talking about you, unusual images, or sensations of things crawling on your skin.

What are the two main presentations of disorganization of speech that we see in people with schizophrenia?

Loose associations, where a sentence is grammatically correct but does not make sense. Clang associations (work salad), where the content is not correct and the sentence is grammatically incorrect, the words may have something in common though.

What are the most common ways that people with schizophrenia exhibit disorganization of behaviour?

Catatonia, which is unusual complex movements and the maintenance of contorted postures. Behavioural disorganization can also include inappropriate affect/expression.

What are the three phases of schizophrenia?

Prodromal, active, and residual.

What is the prodromal phase of schizophrenia?

The phase where there is obvious deterioration in role functioning and major personality changes. Usually goes pretty quickly.

What is the active phase of schizophrenia?

The phase where individuals develop full blown psychosis that can last for days or even years. They longer they are in this stage, the most damage is done.

What is the residual phase of schizophrenia?

The phase where there in improvement in positive symptoms but continues negative symptoms. Any damage that occurred during the active stage is also still present.

Is schizophrenia cyclical?

Yes, meaning participants will bounce between the active stage and the residual stage.

What is the lifetime risk of developing schizophrenia?

Around 1%.

What are common risk factors that affect the lifetime risk of developing schizophrenia?

Having a father over 50, having parents in a dry cleaning business, and being male.

What is the most common age of onset of schizophrenia?

18-30, with more men than women developing schizophrenia. But there is a peak in female occurrences around the time of menopause.

Does schizophrenia affect an individual's life expectancy?

Yes, it shortens it.

How many people with schizophrenia will attempt suicide, and how many will complete it.

20-40% of people will attempt, and 10% will complete.

Why is schizophrenia more prevalent in low socioeconomic groups?

Because of a bidirectional relationship between the disorder and SES. Those in low SES have an increased risk for SCZ due to environmental factors, but many people with SCZ also end up in a low SES due to the disorder.

What factors affect the severity and relapse rates of schizophrenia?

Sex, stress/family environment (specifically expressed emotion (ECHO)), age of onset, premorbid functioning, cognitive ability, and access to treatment.

What factors contribute to an individual having a worse schizophrenia prognosis?

Being male, is they had birth complications, if they experience severe hallucinations and delusions, and if they have a delay in receiving treatment.

How many people continue to have problems despite treatment for szhicophrenia?

33%

How many people with schizophrenia end up getting long-term institutional care?

12%

How many people with schizophrenia can function well 12-25 years later?

38%

How nay people make a full recovery from schizophrenia, meaning the symptoms remit for over 2 years and they exhibit good social functioning?

10-15%

Who is more likely to have worse residual impairment from schizophrenia?

Individuals who have years of recurrent psychotic relapses with periods of remission.

Who is likely to have a good recovery from schizophrenia?

People who have 1+ psychotic episodes but who have a relatively rapid return to normal functioning.