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Psychology Schizophrenia

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Discuss issues with the classification and/or diagnosis of schizophrenia. (8 + 16 marks)

One of the main issues in the diagnosis of schizophrenia is the reliability and validity of it. One of the main diagnosis classification systems is the DSM which aims to help professionals to diagnose mental disorders such as schizophrenia. The other system is the ICD was developed by the world health association to collect health statistics from around the world. The problem with these is that they’re both based on assumption that mental disorders can be separated by the symptoms like physical disorders can be. However the issue with that is unlike physical disorders there’s no specific test for mental disorders like a blood test wouldn’t be useful in the diagnosis of schizophrenia instead it’s based on qualitative methods like interviews and observations therefore it’s harder to come to a defiant diagnosis been as things are more likely to go wrong.
Goldstein tested the DSM for reliability using the current version the DSM-III by re-diagnosing 199 patients that were diagnosed with schizophrenia by the DSM-II. She found that 169 of the 199 patients diagnosed by the DSM-II met the criteria for the DSM-III too. Therefore she found good reliability for the DSM but also she found high levels of inter-rater reliability.
Inter-rater reliability was relooked at by Mojtabi and Nicholson and they looked at unreliable symptoms as only one symptom is required if delusions are bizarre, they got senior psychiatrists to differentiate between bizarre and non – bizarre delusions and found that inter-rater reliability was around +40 so therefore it lacks sufficient reliability. The systems are also used in different cultures as the DSM is primarily used in America as that’s where it originated meaning it may be that in other cultures something that is considered normal may show up as a

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