Clinical Symptoms of schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a disorder characterised by a distorted perception of reality, disordered thinking, impaired emotional responses and poor interpersonal skills.

Some of the symptoms can be categorised as POSITIVE- addition to normal functioning. They include:-
-auditory hallucinations
-delusions-irrational/bizarre beliefs which bear no relation to reality. Delusions may be paranoid or involve an inflated belief in the individuals power (delusions of grandeur).
-Thought disturbance/disorderded thinking, where patients believe that thoughts are being removed or inserted into the person's mind

Other symptoms are negative- represent a loss of normal functioning eg.
-Alogia- loss of fluent speech
-Avolition- loss of motivation

Onset is in the late teens/early 20s for men, and 5-10 yrs later for women, with similar numbers affected.

It is an episodic illness in which periods of psychotic disturbance are interspersed with periods of normal functioning - the emergence of psychotic symptoms usually occurs after a prodromal period in which others can notice a change in behaviour and mood of the individual, but clinical symptoms have not yet appeared.

Active phases of the disorder may last 1-6mths or maybe up until a year- inter episode functioning varies greatly between indviduals which better functioning usually suggesting better prognosis.

Depression often occurs co-morbidly w Sz- 10-15% of Sz patients commit suicide.

Diagnostic manuals which list and classify mental disorders by symptoms.
They contain info about the prevalence+prognosis (outcome of the disease)

ICD-10 is the 10th edition of the international classification system for diseases, produced by WHO
DSM-IV is the 6 edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual produced by the APA, and widely used for diagnosis in the USA and UK.