Are Psychiatric Diagnoses Defamatory Statements?
Abstract
This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows:
To evaluate evidence from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) for the efficacy of different communication strategies used by clinicians to inform patients about the diagnosis and outcome of schizophrenia, compared with treatment as usual
To compare efficacy between different communication strategies.
Background
Description of the condition
Schizophrenia, a serious mental illness, is a group of heterogeneous disorders typically characterised by the presence of delusions, hallucinations, disorganised speech, disorganised behaviour, and negative symptoms (avolition, apathy, anhedonia, alogia, affective blunting). The two major classification systems, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), have different requirements of symptoms duration for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. While the DSM requires a total duration of a minimum of six months, the ICD-10 warrants a minimum duration of one month.