Schizophrenia : Peer Reviewed Studies, Article Critique Example

Schizophrenia is a popular hot topic in the medical world and outside the medical arena. It has been popularized in many ways that aren’t always genuine to its true characteristics. Often many people mistake it for being bipolar, or psychosis, or characters is in film are depicted as being schizophrenic to explain why they have genius mathematical ability. In reality, schizophrenia is a psychological disorder with very real symptoms that put limitations on those suffering from the disease. The sickness has a long history of treatment and diagnosis, which has made for excellent study material, and peer review among medical scholars. The following are peer reviewed articles that assess contemporary knowledge on schizophrenia.

Name(s) of the author(s) Crawford, M. J.; Talwar, N.,

Title of article “Music therapy for in-patients with schizophrenia: Exploratory randomised controlled trial”

Title of journal, volume number, date, month and page numbers: 

The British Journal of Psychiatry (2006) 189 (5): 405–409.

Statement of the problem or issue discussed
The author’s purpose, approach or methods, hypothesis, and major conclusions: To examine the feasibility of a randomised trial of music therapy for inpatients with schizophrenia, and explore its effects on mental health.

In their article “Music therapy for in-patients with schizophrenia: Exploratory randomised controlled trial,” the article notes that, “Music therapy may provide a means of improving mental health among people with schizophrenia, but its effects in acute psychoses have not been explored (Crawford & Talwar, 2006).” Severe psychosis can results from when Schizophrenic patients experiment with drug use. This is the main point of Mason and Miller. In fact , excessive drug use, specifically psychedelic drugs can result triggering full blown schizophrenia.  Crawford and Talwar delve into the concept.

Name(s) of the author(s) Joober, Ridha,

Title of article “The Delusions about Schizophrenia and Psychosis”

Title of journal, volume number, date, month and page numbers: 

.Live at the Douglas Institute 2009.

Statement of the problem or issue discussed
In patient testing of schizophrenia symptoms in live treatment is significantly different from the delusions developed through text study, or in the media.

Ridah reference s E. Bleuler who introduced the term “schizophrenia” in 1911. He originated the term from schizein, which means “to split” and phren meaning “mind.”  The clinical definition for the term became recognized as, the fragmentation of thoughts and feelings (Joober, 2009).”  This basically means there is discordance with the way people put together their mental capacity, or faculties, to understand the world they are living in.  At a Douglas Institute lecture, during their 2009 Mini-Psych school event Ridha Joober points out that schizophrenia results in delusions, specifically false beliefs that are unshakeable. He argues that the end result of these symptoms is that schizophrenia results in a circumstance where those influenced by it lose their freedom. People who have severe psychosis are limited by their fear of unreal threats. The example Joober uses is He talks about negative symptoms of schizophrenia , which he notes are

• Alogia: Thought/speech poor in quantity and quality
• Athymhormia: Blunted/limited affect, decreased range of emotions.
• Abulia/ambivalence: Decreased desire to get involved, which can be as severe as catatonia.
• Asociality: Decreased social interests and interpersonal relations.

These four symptoms are not the only symptoms.  As Miller and Mason point out the symptoms for schizophrenic are some, “I lost my job due to my psychosis and was placed in a psychiatric hospital where I was treated for schizophrenia. I had hallucinations: seeing people that looked like animals and horses with human heads; voices saying, “Sasha, how could you leave your son (Miller, 2012)” Through delusions of grandeur, schizophrenia patients are not always in their state of psychologal order. In addition to this type of known behavior there are over hundreds of other symptoms.

Name(s) of the author(s)  Lewis , S., & Buchannan, R. W.

Title of article: “Fast facts: Schizophrenia ”

Title of journal, volume number, date, month and page numbers: 

(3rd ed.). Abingdon, Oxford: Health Press. (2007).

Statement of the problem or issue discussed
Symptoms of Schizophrenia are clarified and accessed and contrasted from false classifications.

In Their textbook “Fast Fact: Schizophrenia, authors Buchannan and Lewis note that Schneider’s first-rank symptoms of schizophrenia are “Thought insertion, withdrawal or broadcasting, passivity experiences, the experience of one’s thoughts being put into or taken out of one’s head, or broadcast to others. Collectively known as ‘thought interference,’ delusional perception is the experience that one’s thoughts or actions are physically being controlled by an external force: ‘made actions’ Echo de la pensée is common occurrence in the minds schizophrenic patients. A normal perception followed suddenly by a seemingly unrelated, fully formed delusion (Lewis & Buchannan, 2007). Rare running commentary, third-person auditory hallucinations, hallucination of a voice repeating one’s own thoughts, hallucination.

Name(s) of the author(s) DeYoung, Vanderkooi, & Barletta,

Title of article: “Effect of bar-code-assisted medication administration on medication error rates in an adult medical intensive care unit.”

Title of journal, volume number, date, month and page numbers: 

American journal of health system pharmacy AJHP official journal of the American Society of Health System Pharmacists, 66(12), 1110-1115.

Statement of the problem or issue discussed
Transcription and traditional paper medication documentation call for eMAR to be implemented in the treatment of schizophrenia. eMAR implementation has many obstacles preventing it from application.

In general, satisfaction with eMAR on all themes studied improved significantly over time, except that eMAR is expected to enhance nurse/pharmacy communication in patient schizophrenia candidates.  As noted in DeYoung Vanderkooi, and Barletta’s study, A total of 1465 medication administrations were observed 775 pre-implementation and 690 post-implementation for 92 patients, 45 preimplementation and 47 post-implementation. The medication error rate was reduced by 56% after the implementation of BCMA (19.7% versus 8.7%  were less than 0.001). This benefit was related to a reduction associated with errors of wrong administration time. Wrong administration time errors decreased from 18.8% during pre-implementation to 7.5% postimplementation (p < 0.001). There were no significant differences in other error types. (DeYoung, Vanderkooi, & Barletta, 2009).

Consistency of Proposed Solution with Current Research Knowledge is also the key focus area. Lack of improvement in nurse/pharmacy communication may be a reflection of broader communication needs beyond eMAR and also, the time it takes to receive a medication once an order is placed. Similar to the study done by DeYoung and authors, Poon and authors also reported similar results in their study on Effect of bar-code technology on the safety of medication administration. The authors note that they conducted a “before-and-after, quasi-experimental study in an academic medical center that was implementing the bar-code eMAR.

Name(s) of the author(s)  Rubin, A., Springer, D., & Trawver, K.

Title of article: “Psychosocial treatment of schizophrenia.”

Title of journal, volume number, date, month and page numbers: 

American journal of health system pharmacy AJHP official journal of the American Society of Health System Pharmacists.

Statement of the problem or issue discussed
Disabling conditions assess in comparison to one another.  Schizophrenia is put in

The main premise taken from all of the reports is that schizophrenia is a very serious matter, and to be taken seriously.  From medical resource, to Hollywood going globe the practice. The concept of schizophrenia is what that level the patients Schizophrenia “Schizophrenia is perhaps the most disabling of all mental disorders. It produces significant residual cognitive, functional, and social deficits. As such, its treatment is complex and multifaceted, requiring a multidisciplinary approach (Rubin, Springer & Trawver, 2010).” Here the authors reinforce the fact that schizophrenia must be approached from a diverse range of perspective s to encompass all of the potential symptoms and to limit behavior that could accelerate the mental deterioration of the patient. Life is too short to live it serving delusions and dedicating your life.

Work Cited

Crawford, M. J.; Talwar, N., et al. (November 2006). “Music therapy for in-patients with schizophrenia: Exploratory randomised controlled trial“. The British Journal of Psychiatry (2006) 189 (5): 405–409.

Elganzouri, E. S., Standish, C. A., & Androwich, I. (2009). Medication Administration Time

Joober, Ridha (2009), The Delusions about Schizophrenia and Psychosis (Live at the Douglas Institute) 2009. [Video Online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxq9fWgPBjM [Accessed 7 August 2012]

Study (MATS): nursing staff performance of medication administration. The Journal of nursing administration, 39(5), 204-210.

Hughes, R.G. (2008). Patient safety and quality: An evidence-based handbook for nurses. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. AHRQ Publication

Lewis , S., & Buchannan, R. W. (2007). Fast facts:schizophrenia . (3rd ed.). Abingdon, Oxford: Health Press. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/westerngovernors/docDetail.action?docID=10480479

Mason, S. E., & Miller, R. (2010). Diagnosis: Schizophrenia . (2nd ed.). New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/westerngovernors/docDetail.action?docID=10435887

Rubin, A., Springer, D., & Trawver, K. (2011).Psychosocial treatment of schizophrenia. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/westerngovernors/docDetail.action?docID=10510558