Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness that affects 1% of the population. The average onset of symptoms is early teens to late 20’s for men and late 20’s to early 30’s for woman (2018). For a person to be diagnosed with Schizophrenia they must have two or more of the following symptoms for at least a one-month and at least one of them must be 1, 2, or 3:
1.Delusions
2. Hallucinations
3. Disorganized speech
4. Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior
5. Negative symptoms, such as diminished emotional expression (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)
The symptoms of Schizophrenia has been the focal point for may Hollywood films such as The Snake Pit, A Beautiful Mind and Me, Myself and Irene. Movies can increase the stigma of mental illness in some cases. One myth about schizophrenia is that people with schizophrenia are cognitively delayed. One study looked at people with schizophrenia in a work rehabilitation program. Patients who were able to demonstrate increased skills in planning, reasoning, and problem-solving were more likely to get increased paying jobs and more hours (Lexen, Hofgren, Stenmark & Bejerholm, 2016). The video below is video of a young woman functioning with schizophrenia. She is studying astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University and is an advocate for college students with schizophrenia.
There is a large stigma that surrounds mental illness. One way to decrease the stigma is to listen to people’s stories. One study found that a peer run education was more effective that a psycho-education in decreasing stigma in families of people with mental illness (Vaghee, Salarhaji & Vaghei, 2016). In the video below a young woman with schizophrenia views a schizophrenia simulation and compares it to her own life. This video can help shed light on what it is like to live with Schizophrenia
Another myth about Schizophrenia is that people with schizophrenia are more violent than people without schizophrenia. The video below may be triggering for some. It is a news clip covering the death of a young man with schizophrenia at Bridgewater hospital in Massachusetts. This video is included in this blog to show an extreme of what can happen when people are not educated properly about mental illness. People with Schizophrenia are more likely to be victimized that they are to be perpetrators (Short, Thomas, Luebbers, Mullen, & Ogloff, 2013) .
References:
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.).
NAMI. (2018). Schizophrenia. https://www.nami.org/Learn- More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Schizophrenia
Lexén, A., Hofgren, C., Stenmark, R., & Bejerholm, U. (2016). Cognitive functioning and employment among people with schizophrenia in vocational rehabilitation. Work, 54(3), 735-744. doi:10.3233/WOR-162318
Short, T. R., Thomas, S., Luebbers, S., Mullen, P., & Ogloff, J. P. (2013). A case-linkage study of crime victimisation in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders over a period of deinstitutionalisation. BMC Psychiatry, 13(1), 1-9. doi:10.1186/1471-244X-13-66
Vaghee, S., Salarhaji, A., & Vaghei, N. (2016). Comparing the effect of in our own voice-family with psychoeducation on stigma in families of schizophrenia patients. Nursing Practice Today, 3(4), 139-151.