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  • Essay / Schizophrenia: Research identifying three stages of...

    Schizophrenia is a serious and debilitating mental disorder that affects approximately 1% of the world's population (Mamani, Gurak, & Suro, 2014). Schizophrenia is characterized by positive symptoms, including hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking and speech, as well as negative symptoms, including flat affect, apathy, lack of motivation or drive, and social isolation. . Schizophrenia is also associated with cognitive, social, and functional deficits and mood abnormalities, such as anxiety and depression (Larson, Walker, & Compton, 2010). Due to the chronic and debilitating nature of schizophrenia, recent research has focused on identifying and treating individuals in the prodromal phase of the illness, also called at-risk mental state or ARMS (Tiffin & Welsh, 2013). . The prodrome or ARMS refers to the period beginning with a decline in areas such as cognition and social, emotional, and perceptual functioning, and ending with the onset of schizophrenia spectrum disorder (White, Anjum, & Schulz, 2006). Identifying and treating the prodromal period is of utmost importance, as research has shown that a longer duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) is associated with a poorer prognosis for patients (Kaur and Cadenhead, 2010; Larson et al., 2010). Recent research has identified three stages of the prodrome. In the early stage of the prodrome, individuals often exhibit the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, including social withdrawal, decline in academic functioning, and may also exhibit signs of anxiety or depression (Larson et al., 2010). These individuals also often have a genetic vulnerability to developing schizophrenia, in the form of a family history of psychosis (Kaur and Cadenhead, 2010). Midway through the article, consider when booster sessions might be most helpful. Finally, research examining the potential stigma associated with treating these at-risk individuals would be helpful. If it is determined that providing these treatments to at-risk individuals is stigmatizing, this could be an area of ​​focus for clinicians working within this population. Overall, this area of ​​research is of extreme importance due to the fact that longer periods of untreated illness in psychosis are associated with a poorer prognosis. However, additional research into the effectiveness of CT scanning for prodrome is needed, and limitations of this research should be addressed further, such as testing the intervention with people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, tracking participant outcomes over periods of time. longer and test the intervention against other well-validated treatment programs.