How is schizophrenia diagnosed?
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| photo credit: Deniz Altindas @omeganova @unsplash How is schizophrenia diagnosed | @healthbiztips |
@healthbiztips by Arlene Gentallan | psychology blog
Schizophrenia is a mental illness that is diagnosed by a psychiatrist based on the criteria set on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The DSM-5, published in 2013, is the latest edition released by the American Psychiatric Association with the purpose of classifying and diagnosing mental health conditions.
According to the criteria, a diagnosis of schizophrenia is made when an individual has two or more of the following symptoms experienced for most of the time during a 1 month period. Furthermore, schizophrenia is only diagnosed when these symptoms causes disruption to the person's social, occupational, academic, or self-care needs for at least 6 months.
1. Delusion. (false beliefs such as a strong unreal conviction of an individual that he can fly, other people are plotting against him, someone will kill him, he is the smartest person in the world or he is constantly under spy camera surveillance)
2. Hallucination. (e.g. seeing, feeling, smelling, or hearing non-existent things)
3. Disorganized speech. (e.g. a person talks using a jumble of words, jumps from one idea to another that's no logical and isn't able to express clear thoughts)
4. Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior. (e.g. bizarre and purposeless physical movement, assuming an odd posture, body rigidity, or inability to voluntary move)
5. Negative symptoms. (such blunt affect, decrease eye contact, converses in monotone voice, blank stare, stays muted or talks too little). Pointing out a negative symptom is quite hard especially if you are not familiar with the usual behavior of the person prior to the onset of schizophrenic symptoms because some of these traits are seen in individuals with sound mental health.
2. Hallucination. (e.g. seeing, feeling, smelling, or hearing non-existent things)
3. Disorganized speech. (e.g. a person talks using a jumble of words, jumps from one idea to another that's no logical and isn't able to express clear thoughts)
4. Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior. (e.g. bizarre and purposeless physical movement, assuming an odd posture, body rigidity, or inability to voluntary move)
5. Negative symptoms. (such blunt affect, decrease eye contact, converses in monotone voice, blank stare, stays muted or talks too little). Pointing out a negative symptom is quite hard especially if you are not familiar with the usual behavior of the person prior to the onset of schizophrenic symptoms because some of these traits are seen in individuals with sound mental health.
There is currently no laboratory, diagnostic, and imaging test that can identify schizophrenia, however, these tests are used to determine health conditions (such as seizure, brain tumor, or drug abuse) that might actually be real culprit behind the signs and symptoms experienced by the patient.
