Reasearch to Support Low reliability in the diagnosis of schizophrenia

Research to Support there is low reliability in the diagnosis of schizophrenia

Jones and Grey 1986 - A large population of those diagnosed in Western countries are of Afro-Caribbean descent. They argue that not all diagnosed, actually have the illness, but their 'symptoms' misinterpreted by psychiatrists. (eg. their different style of language could be interpreted as disorganised speech) This supports the idea of how the cultural background of the psychiatrist can lower the reliability of diagnosis.

Stephens et al 1982- Investigated inter-rater reliability of nine Classification systems (CS's). They were looking to see if each CS gave the same diagnosis to each of 283 patients. Doctors were asked to diagnose each patient with all 9 CS's. Agreement between the CS's was poor - the same patient was not given the same diagnosis by each system. This supports the idea that there is low reliability between the…