Schizophrenia key studies

Had 2 psychiatrists idenpendently diagnose 100 patients using the DSM-5 and ICD-10 .

Inter-rater reliability was poor:

• psychiatrist 1 diagnosed 26 with DSM & 44 with ICD
• psychiatrist 2 diagnosed 13 with DSM & 24 with ICD

This is a weakness of the diagnosis of schizophrenia

Validity is also poor:

(To assess the validity we use criterion validity to see if different assessment types arrive at the same diagnosis for the same patient)

• the assessment systems didn't arrive at the same diagnosis for the same patient
• schizophrenia is more likely to be diagnosed with the ICD than the DSM
• suggest that either schizophrenia is over diagnosed with the ICD or under diagnosed with the DSM

Found that 50% of patients with schizophrenia also had depression and substance abuse in just under 50%.
29% had Post- traumatic stress disorder and 23% had OCD

Is severe depression is similar to SZ are they the same condition?

Found that as genetic similarity increases the likelihood of both individuals developing schizophrenia.
Concordance rates in monozygotic twins (48%)
Compared to concordance rates in dizygotic twins (17%)

Studied 37,000 schizophrenia patients and compared their genes with 113,000 controls

-found that there were 108 separate gene combinations that are linked to an increased risk of schizophrenia

-genes associated with an increased risk also include those that code for the functioning of several neurotransmitters such as dopamine