Schizophrenia Research Paper
Covering Personality Disorders
If you are in a psychology course that is covering personality disorders, then schizophrenia will be a large part of that curriculum, primarily because there are at least four diagnosed types, each with different symptoms and treatments and because schizophrenia is such a major mental health problem today. If you are charged with producing a research paper on schizophrenia, then you have an almost limitless range of options.
Schizophrenia Defined
The range of schizophrenia makes a simple definition difficult. In essence, it is a psychotic personality disorder that is characterized by delusions, hallucinations, extreme disorganization and lack of reality orientation, or any combination of these things. And this is why it is often so difficult to treat. Psychiatrists often must prescribe a cocktail of medications to treat individual symptoms that a sufferer has. And if and when the symptoms change, then a new cocktail must be devised. This disease is generally life-long, although some people go into remission for years. Because of the complexity of this disease, if you are going to be engaged in research paper writing on it, you will need to look at a large number of options for topics, and then carefully narrow your topic to a manageable one for the length of paper required.
Schizophrenia Research Paper Ideas
- Causes of Schizophrenia: Researchers now agree that there is a biologic, and genetic predisposition to schizophrenia. Why that predisposition turns into the disease in some and not in others is still a matter for research, but there is a growing consensus that stress and other environmental causes are to blame. An interesting topic for a research paper on schizophrenia might be to look at the possible causes other than stress – diet, pollution, allergies, and so forth. There is some really interesting research on these things.
- Types and Symptoms of Schizophrenia: There are four basic types, each with their own symptoms. Exploring those symptoms and their outward behaviors would make you somewhat of an “expert” on the subject.
- An Argumentative Research Paper: There is a lot of disagreement on the causes of schizophrenia, from those who posit a long-acting virus that attacks the unborn child and manifests years later to a completely Freudian explanation of a return to the “oral” stage when the ego was not developed. Everything in between is up for grabs. You might wish to conduct your research on the studies that show the much higher incidence of schizophrenia in urban as opposed to rural areas and the much higher incidence in society undergoing large social change as opposed to incidences before that change began.
- Treatments and Side Effects: This is an interesting are for research, considering that almost 80% of patients on medication stop taking their medications within one year of the onset of treatment. They do not like the side effects. What are those side effects and what medical science doing to reduce them?
Schizophrenia is a fascinating disease to be certain, but it is also quite complex. If you are experiencing some trouble identifying your topic, finding the right research, or finding the time to craft a research paper that will earn a good grade, contact a writing service that has graduate-degreed psychology experts on staff to help you.
