Psychosis
Psychotic symptoms typically include hallucinations and delusions. Mild symptoms do not always prevent a person from working. Schizophrenia refers to long-term psychotic symptoms.
Psychosis is a mental disorder where a person has a reduced sense of reality and has difficulty knowing what is true and what is not. At times, the person struggles to make the distinction between reality and the images inside their head. Hallucinations and delusions are typical psychotic symptoms .
There are different types of psychosis, such as psychosis of unknown origin, reactive psychosis, psychosis related to substance abuse and long-term psychosis, i.e. schizophrenia. Psychosis can be short-term and temporary, and it does not always affect all functionality. Long-term psychosis, however, implies various psychotic illnesses, such as schizophrenia.
Early recognition of schizophrenia is important
Schizophrenia is a psychological illness that starts in young adulthood and comes in many forms. Its worsening can be prevented by identifying and starting treatment as early as possible. The incidence of schizophrenia is around 1.3%, which is some 36% of all cases of psychosis.
Common early signs of schizophrenia include anxiety, depression and impaired functional capacity. The symptoms can last for days or years before the onset of schizophrenia. When the first symptoms develop into a psychosis, the person has strong distortions of thinking and observing, delusions and hallucinations and abnormal emotional expression, such as incoherent speech, strange behaviour or agitation.
The onset of schizophrenia can be understood on the basis of the stress-vulnerability model. According to the model, schizophrenia is triggered in vulnerable persons by internal or external stress. The vulnerability may be genetic, developmental or both.