By Ben Renner | 25 April 2019
STUDY FINDS — A significant number of people declared schizophrenic by their doctors may be misdiagnosed. New research concluded from a small study of schizophrenia patients referred to the Johns Hopkins Early Psychosis Intervention Clinic (EPIC) found that about half didn’t have the disease at all.
Schizophrenia is a severe, chronic mental disorder typically characterized by disordered thinking, emotions, and behavior. The study showed that most misdiagnoses of these referrals were of patients battling anxiety or other mental conditions, with many wrongly classified for reporting that they heard voices.
Hopkins researchers say the results call for second opinions at specialized schizophrenia clinics after the initial diagnosis. This could reduce the risk of misdiagnoses and ensure fast and appropriate patient treatment.
“Because we’ve shined a spotlight in recent years on emerging and early signs of psychosis, diagnosis of schizophrenia is like a new fad, and it’s a problem especially for those who are not schizophrenia specialists because symptoms can be complex and misleading,” says Krista Baker, manager of adult outpatient schizophrenia services at Johns Hopkins Medicine, in a statement. “Diagnostic errors can be devastating for people, particularly the wrong diagnosis of a mental disorder.” […]
Johns Hopkins Med School – may, I say MAY – be among the good guys. This is an important result.
I know some of the work of Paul McHugh, MD now 88 yrs old Prof Emeritus there – long opposed to, in general, the “gender revolution” and gender reassignment surgery in particular. Way back in the 1980s (70s?) when he was something like CMO of the Med School he totally shut down the gender reassignment surgery operations of the med school – they had “pioneered” the procedure (the principle outcomes of which were a life in diapers and an elevated suicide risk).
Much later, he was one of the few voices of sanity in the whole Caitlin Jenner mania; his claim: men gaining sexual gratification from fantasizing that they were women was a well understood, if rare, psychiatric disorder. (Thought crime!)
My guess: much more money to be made from a Schiz diagnosis than mere “anxiety” – for the latter the drugs are generic and cheep; probably much wider range of choices for Schiz – some “experimental” (i.e. expensive) … again – a guess.
I recall our host’s … I’d almost call it “inspiring” anxiety post some weeks back. Time for a repost ? (My Xanex prescription remains untouched!)