IGNOU Post B. SC. Nursing entrance-2019
Mental Health Nursing
Easy
A positive symptom of Schizophrenia is?
Appeared in: IGNOU Post B. SC. Nursing entrance-2019
Explanation
- Positive symptoms of schizophrenia are psychotic behaviors not generally seen in healthy people; they represent an excess or distortion of normal functions.
- Hallucinations are a classic positive symptom, defined as sensory experiences that occur in the absence of any real external stimulus.
- These can be auditory (hearing voices), visual (seeing things), olfactory (smelling odors), gustatory (tasting things), or tactile (feeling sensations on the skin).
- In contrast, negative symptoms involve a reduction in normal emotional and behavioral states.
Why Other Options Were Wrong
- Option B: Flat affect is a negative symptom, not a positive one. It refers to a significant reduction in the intensity of emotional expression.
- Option C: Anhedonia is a negative symptom. It describes the inability to derive pleasure from previously enjoyable activities.
- Option D: Avolition is a negative symptom characterized by a severe lack of motivation or initiative to accomplish purposeful tasks.
Related Visual
Clinical Relevance
- Nursing practice connection: Knowing Classification of Schizophrenia Symptoms (Positive vs. Negative) helps nurses interpret findings accurately and avoid errors in routine assessment, medication administration, and patient teaching.
- Nurses must differentiate between positive and negative symptoms to plan appropriate care. Positive symptoms (like hallucinations) often require immediate safety assessment and antipsychotic medication.
- When a patient experiences hallucinations, the nurse's priority is to assess for command hallucinations (voices telling the patient to harm themselves or others) and ensure safety.
- Negative symptoms (like avolition and anhedonia) are often more persistent and debilitating, requiring psychosocial interventions, skill training, and support for activities of daily living (ADLs).
How to Approach the Question
- First, understand the question is asking to identify a 'positive' symptom of schizophrenia.
- Recall the definition of positive vs. negative symptoms. 'Positive' means the addition of a behavior, thought, or perception. 'Negative' means the absence or reduction of a normal function.
- Evaluate each option against the definition of a positive symptom.
- Hallucination is an added sensory experience, which fits the definition of a positive symptom.
- Flat affect (lack of emotion), anhedonia (lack of pleasure), and avolition (lack of motivation) are all deficits or 'absences' of normal function, classifying them as negative symptoms.
- Therefore, hallucination is the only positive symptom among the choices.
Concept Tested & Keywords
- Concept Tested: Classification of Schizophrenia Symptoms (Positive vs. Negative)
- Stem keywords: Schizophrenia, positive symptom
- Lead-in keywords: is
- Negative lead-in flag: false
Question ID
Q5ReAGXzT4vw6eS9pHyNbh
Reference Book
E6 Kaplan Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry-2022 (pp 1-3768 of 3768) p. 1097-1099
E6 Robert Boland, Marcia L. Verduin - Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Text of Psychiatry-Wolters Kluwer Health (2024) (pp 1-16525 of 16525) p. 4730-4732
Practise the full IGNOU Post B. SC. Nursing entrance-2019
Attempt every question from this paper in a timed mock, then review the full solution for each one.
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