CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY CLASSIC STUDY - ROSENHAN 1973
BEING SANE IN INSANE PLACES
- Created by: imogenrey
- Created on: 28-11-17 17:46
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- Rosenhan 1973 - Being sane in insane places
- Aims
- To test the reliability and validity of diagnosis
- To see if sane could be distinguished from insane using the DSM as a diagnostic tool.
- To highlight the negative impact of being abnormal and institutionalised
- Sample / Hospitals
- The study used 8 pseudo patients that were sent to 12 different hospitals across 5 US states.
- The staff were the actual participants in the study.
- The 12 hospitals had varying funds, resources, staff:patient ratios and whether the hospital was state / private funded.
- The 8 pseudo patients each had varying backgrounds and no recorded mental health issues. They were also given false identities when they were sent to the hospitals.
- 1 of the hospitals was privately funded, the rest were all state funded.
- Method
- Independent Variable - The symptoms displayed to the psychiatrist.
- Dependent Variable - The admission to the hospital and the length of the hospital stay
- The study was a natural experiment
- Procedure
- The 8 pseudo patients were sent to the different hospitals and presented fake symptoms such as hearing an unfamiliar voice of the same gender saying things like 'hollow', 'empty' and 'thud'.
- All the information the pseudo patients g gave apart from the fake symptoms was real however; including their relationships, education and childhoods.
- As soon as they were admitted all of the fake symptoms were stopped and they acted 'normally'.
- Some of them took notes on the hospital, other patients and staff; this was viewed as normal behaviour for an schizophrenia patient and ignored.
- When asked how they felt they said they felt fine and that they no longer had any of the symptoms, some even requesting to know when they would be discharged.
- Results
- All of the 8 pseudo patients were admitted to the hospitals and diagnosed with Schizophrenia except one hospital.
- The shortest stay at one of the hospitals was 7 days and the longest was 52 days. The average stay before discharge was 19 days.
- In 3 of the hospitals 35/118 other real patients were suspicious of the pseudo one.
- On average the pseudo patients were given 15 tablets a day and even normal behaviour was seen as a feature of the illness.
- They were given the diagnosis of Schizophrenic in remission.
- Conclusion
- Rosenhan concluded that the DSM-2 was in valid and that diagnosing individuals. He also concluded that staff could not distinguish sane from insane people
- Aims
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