Schizophrenia
Definition
Schizophrenia (pronounced skit-suh-FREH-nee-uh) is a psychotic disorder or group of psychotic disorders that cause a patient to lose touch with reality. It is marked by severely impaired reasoning and emotional instability and can cause violent behavior.
Schizophrenic patients are often unable to make sense of the signals they receive from the world around them. They imagine objects and events to be very different from what they really are. If untreated, most people with schizophrenia gradually withdraw from the outside world.
Exactly what schizophrenia is has been the source of considerable disagreement among psychiatrists (doctors who deal with mental disorders). There is some thought that the disease psychiatrists call schizophrenia is actually a number of different conditions classified under a single heading.
Description
Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder that affects millions of people worldwide. By some estimates, 1 percent of the world's population may be schizophrenic. People diagnosed with schizophrenia make up about half of all patients in psychiatric hospitals and may occupy as many as one quarter of the world's hospital beds.
Schizophrenia can affect people of any age, race, sex, social class, level of education, or ethnic background. Slightly more men than women develop the condition.
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