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Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is the most common major psychiatric disorder, with the prevalence (number cases in the country at any one time) of 3 per 1,000 in the UK. It happens differently for each person, but usually involves a dramatic disturbance in thoughts and feelings.
The features common to many cases of schizophrenia are:
- Delusions (abnormal beliefs not based in reality)
- Hallucinations (the sensation of an experience that isn’t actually happening)
- Disordered thought based on the delusions and hallucinations
- Abnormal behaviour in response to the other three features.
Schizophrenia often starts suddenly and catastrophically (acute schizophrenia), and may go on to produce a chronic (ongoing) illness. Nearly 80% of those who have a first episode will recover, but 70% will have a second episode within five to seven years.
Two important points:
- Schizophrenia is frequently misunderstood as "split personality" or “multiple personality”. However the split in Schizophrenia refers to the discrepancy between thinking and feeling, not personality.
- People with schizophrenia are very rarely dangerous to other people. Most who have the illness are vulnerable and withdrawn and more likely to hurt themselves than others.
