Schizophrenia Symptoms and Characteristics

Vocabulary flashcards covering the symptoms, speech patterns, and delusion types of schizophrenia based on the Videbeck 9th Ed Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing textbook.

Positive or hard symptoms/signs

Symptoms of schizophrenia that include delusions; hallucinations; and grossly disorganized thinking, speech, and behavior.

Negative or soft symptoms/signs

Symptoms of schizophrenia that include flat affect, lack of volition, and social withdrawal or discomfort.

Ambivalence

Holding seemingly contradictory beliefs or feelings about the same person, event, or situation.

Associative looseness

Fragmented or poorly related thoughts and ideas.

Bizarre behavior

Outlandish appearance or clothing; repetitive or stereotyped, seemingly purposeless movements; unusual social or sexual behavior.

Delusions

Fixed false beliefs that have no basis in reality.

Echopraxia

Imitation of the movements and gestures of another person whom the client is observing.

Flight of ideas

Continuous flow of verbalization in which the person jumps rapidly from one topic to another.

Hallucinations

False sensory perceptions or perceptual experiences that do not exist in reality.

Ideas of reference

False impressions that external events have special meaning for the person.

Perseveration

Persistent adherence to a single idea or topic; verbal repetition of a sentence, word, or phrase; resisting attempts to change the topic.

Alogia

Tendency to speak little or to convey little substance of meaning (poverty of content).

Anhedonia

Feeling no joy or pleasure from life or any activities or relationships.

Apathy

Feelings of indifference toward people, activities, and events.

Asociality

Social withdrawal, few or no relationships, lack of closeness.

Avolition (lack of volition)

Absence of will, ambition, or drive to take action or accomplish tasks.

Blunted affect

Restricted range of emotional feeling, tone, or mood.

Catatonia

Psychologically induced immobility occasionally marked by periods of agitation or excitement; the client seems motionless, as if in a trance.

Flat affect

Absence of any facial expression that would indicate emotions or mood.

Inattention

Inability to concentrate or focus on a topic or activity, regardless of its importance.

Schizoaffective disorder

A diagnosis used when the client is severely ill and has a mixture of psychotic and mood symptoms.

Clang associations

Ideas that are related to one another based on sound or rhyming rather than meaning.

Neologisms

Words invented by the client.

Verbigeration

The stereotyped repetition of words or phrases that may or may not have meaning to the listener.

Echolalia

The client's imitation or repetition of what the nurse says.

Stilted language

Use of words or phrases that are flowery, excessive, and pompous.

Word salad

A combination of jumbled words and phrases that are disconnected or incoherent and that make no sense to the listener.

Persecutory/paranoid delusions

The belief that "others" are planning to harm the client or are spying, following, ridiculing, or belittling them.

Grandiose delusions

Characterized by the client's claim to association with famous people or the belief that they are famous or capable of great feats.

Religious delusions

Psychotic beliefs often centering on religious figures like Christ or special religious missions, appearing suddenly and not as part of the client's actual faith.

Somatic delusions

Vague and unrealistic beliefs about the client's health or bodily functions, such as having decaying intestines.

Sexual delusions

The belief that the client's sexual behavior is known to others or that they are a rapist, prostitute, or pregnant.

Nihilistic delusions

The belief that the client's organs are not functioning or are rotting away, or that a body part is horribly disfigured.

Referential delusions

The belief that television broadcasts, music, or newspaper articles have special meaning specifically for the client.