Facts About Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behaviour that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling.

Symptoms

Schizophrenia involves a range of problems with thinking(cognition), behaviour and emotions. Symptoms may include:

1)Delusions: These are false beliefs that are not based in reality. Forexample, you think that you're being harmed or harassed; certaingestures or comments are directed at you; you have exceptionalability or fame; another person is in love with you, or a majorcatastrophe is about to occur. Delusions occur in most people withschizophrenia.

2)Hallucinations: These usually involve seeing or hearing thingsthat don't exist. Yet for the person with schizophrenia, they have thefull force and impact of a normal experience. Hallucinations can bein any of the senses, but hearing voices is the most commonhallucination.

3)Disorganized thinking (speech): Disorganized thinking is inferredfrom disorganized speech. Effective communication can beimpaired, and answers to questions may be partially or completelyunrelated. Rarely, speech may include putting together meaninglesswords that can't be understood, sometimes known as word salad.

4)Extremely disorganized or abnormal motor behaviour: This mayshow in several ways, from childlike silliness to unpredictableagitation. Behaviour isn't focused on a goal, so it's hard to do tasks.Behaviour can include resistance to instructions, inappropriate orbizarre posture, a complete lack of response, or useless andexcessive movement.

5)Negative symptoms: This refers to reduced or lack of ability tofunction normally. For example, the person may neglect personalhygiene or appear to lack emotion (doesn't make eye contact, doesn'tchange facial expressions or speaks in a monotone). Also, theperson may lose interest in everyday activities, socially withdraw orlack the ability to experience pleasure.

Symptoms can vary in type and severity over time, with periods ofworsening and remission of symptoms. Some symptoms mayalways be present.

From the study on the gender differences in people living with schizophrenia, it was reported that the

The incidence of schizophrenia is higher in men. 

Men have more negative and depressive symptoms than women 

The onset of schizophrenia tends to happen earlier among men than among women.

In men, schizophrenia symptoms typically start in the early tomid-20s. In women, symptoms typically begin in the late 20s.

Premorbid functioning which refers to an individual's social,interpersonal, academic, and occupational functioning beforethe onset of psychotic symptoms seem to be better in femalesthan males.

Social functioning in terms of social problem solving, workperformance and interpersonal relationships seem to be betterin females than males. However, cognitive functioning remainscontroversial.

In terms of the disease course, women have better remission andlower relapse rates.

Men presented a higher prevalence of substance abuse thanwomen. Moreover, it seems that substance abuse could be arisk factor for developing psychosis in males.

Women required less time in hospital than men at baseline. Theresult of studies indicated that women had fewer admissionsthan men and the length of stay was shorter. Also, womenpresented a higher risk of hospitalization than men.

People with schizophrenia are 2 to 3 times more likely to die early than the general population. This is often due to physical illnesses, such as cardiovascular, metabolic, and infectious diseases.

Stigma, discrimination, and violation of human rights of people with schizophrenia are common.

More than two out of three people with psychosis in the world do not receive specialist mental health care.

 A range of effective care options for people with schizophrenia exist and at least one in three people with schizophrenia will be able to fully recover.

A person living with schizophrenia often lack awareness that their difficulties stem from a mental disorder that requires medical attention. So it often falls to family or friends to get them help. You can always talk to a person exhibiting these symptoms about your concerns and if the person does not want to seek professional help,you can offer encouragement and support and help your loved one find a qualified doctor or mental health professional.

By

Alalade Opeyemi

I am a health writer and enthusiastic about improving lives throughpublic dissemination of information about your health.

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References

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354443

Laursen TM, Nordentoft M, Mortensen PB. Excess early mortality in schizophrenia. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 2014;10, 425-438. 

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/schizophrenia

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22966451/#:~:text=Several%20studies%20indicate%20that%20the,women%20have%20more%20affective%20symptoms.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2603279/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2890874/

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/schizort/2012/916198/