Question

Topic: Schizophrenia

1. Review the readings on schizophrenia, DSM-V criteria and briefly describe schizophrenia, and current understanding of the disorder.

2. Conduct a literature search and address one of the following questions in a brief essay:

a) What is the relationship (if any) between violence and schizophrenia?

b) What role, if any, does stigma play in help seeking, treatment, and recovery?

Answer 1

According to DSM 1V schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterised by hallucinations, disorganised speech , catatonic behaviour and negative symptoms which include apathy, anhedonia, logia and associalito. Schizophrenia occurs within the age of 16 and 30. The symptoms of schizophrenia are categorised into positive symptoms, negative symptoms, emotional symptoms and cognitive symptoms.

The main factors that lead to schizophrenia are genetic and environmental factors, hormonal imbalance, family relations and schizophrenia induced by drugs. There are different types of schizophrenia. They are catatonic schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia, hebephrenic schizophrenia, schizoaffective schizophrenia and childhood schizophrenia.

Some symptoms of schizophrenia have direct relationship with violence. For eg: in delusion of persecution the patient thinks that someone is planning to kill him, which will lead the patient towards violent behaviour and usually the victim of this violence is family members. The bombarding of psychotic symptoms increases the risk of violence in schizophrenic patients. Besides this the poor prognosis and poor psycho-social functioning also lead to violence.

Stigma plays a major role in the treatment and recovery of patients with schizophrenia. During the earlier stages ignorance of patient about the treatment as well as self stigma keeps these people away from seeking mental health care services. Because of the social stigma and resulting discrimination, people will not talk about the illness and refuse to take treatment. This can lead to self medication and substance abuse, loneliness or social isolation and frustration.

Schizophrenia is a disorder in which earlier intervention is required in order to reduce the severity of symptoms. There is a myth that treatment is not possible in schizophrenia , this is because of the delayed seeking of treatment due to stigmatisation.