Discuss issues surrounding the classification and diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Discuss issues surrounding the classification and diagnosis of schizophrenia.
There are many issues when it comes to the classification and diagnosis of schizophrenia, one of them being the reliability of the major classification systems, the DSM and ICD. Early versions of the DSM were deemed unreliable, even now when the newer versions are now said to have increased reliability there is little evidence to prove that the DSM is used with high reliability by mental health clinicians. This unreliable source of diagnosis may cause some patients to be misdiagnosed and due to this misdiagnosis many terrible situations may occur, they will be mistreated and therefore will be given drugs and exercises which are completely irrelevant to what they need to do, this could cause great harm to both their physical and mental well being, the misdiagnosis can also affect how they are in real life for example they will be labelled schizophrenic and therefore will struggle with everything in life, such as getting a job or even being themselves for they believe what they have been told to be true.
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Quality of writing
The Quality of Written Communication (QWC) is debatable. The candidate's use of psychological terms is limited and their use of English can also leave a lot to be desired, often compromising the clarity and the natural flow of their sentences. Especially towards the end of the first paragraph, the candidate needs to familiarise themselves with list punctuation such as commas and semi-colons; they must also know how to apply them correctly. Some of the sentence would be better off with simple full stops , e.g. "This unreliable source of diagnosis may cause some patients to be misdiagnosed and due to this misdiagnosis many terrible situations may occur, they will be mistreated and therefore will be given drugs and exercises which are completely irrelevant to what they need to do, this could cause great harm to both their physical and mental well being, the misdiagnosis can also affect how they are in real life for example they will be labelled schizophrenic and therefore will struggle with everything in life, such as getting a job or even being themselves for they believe what they have been told to be true." is actually written as one sentence when it should be broken into three or four. Candidates must be aware of the QWC because if the answer, as this one is, compromises the intentions of the writing then it can lead to examiners thinking the candidate does not know how to express their points clearly and easy QWC marks will be missed.
Level of analysis
The Level of Analysis is not too evident nor very good where it has been implemented, although this leads me to believe that this question does not mark analysis, more rather AO1 (knowledge and understanding), so that will be marked here. The candidate demonstrates a fair knowledge of schizophrenia and a basic knowledge of it's symptoms. There is an excellent grasp of how schizophrenia, when misdiagnosed, can affect a person's life for the worse, but as stated before, the candidate appears to struggle explaining the knowledge they have. They should look to become more familiar with the appropriate terms such as "psychotic disorder", "stickiness of psychiatric labelling", "stigma", and "stereotypes". By not using these words the candidate implicitly sends messages to the examiner that they are not confident in their knowledge of psychological terminology and are therefore limiting the possibility of their answer achieving high grades.
Response to question
This essay concerns the difficulties with the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis of the psychotic disorder schizophrenia. The candidate appears to show basic knowledge of the illness (mentioning hallucinations, delusions, etc.) but unfortunately the candidate's expression is not precise enough nor, in some places, accurate enough to score much higher than a high D grade/low C grade for A Level. The candidate's answer is not assisted in great quantities by much psychological terminology, which would help them pinpoint their intentions more precisely. It seems the candidate possesses the knowledge to score higher, but has issues expressing themselves using the appropriate vocabulary, e.g. "the misdiagnosis can also affect how they are in real life for example they will be labelled schizophrenic and therefore will struggle with everything in life" - the wording here is debatable, and compromises the precision required of essays like these; being so general - "will struggle with everything in life" - will not elicit any marks; candidates should be far more precise and say things like "will be greatly hindered at their chance of fair treatment do to the stereotype schizophrenia brings and the poor public understanding of the disorder".
