SCHIZOPHRENIA IN ADULT WOMEN Abstract Presentati

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 2003) states that schizophrenia is the most disabling of all of the mental disorders. According to the NIMH, globally, about one percent of all men and women are diagnosed with schizophrenia. It occurs more often in young men than in women and usually has its onset in the late teen and early adult years. In the United States, approximately 2.2 million adults (individuals 18 years or older) have schizophrenia. The NIMH also reports that women tend to have later onset, and may have more depressive symptoms, paranoia, and auditory hallucinations than men but they tend to respond better to typical antipsychotic medications.

The issue selected for examination in this report is schizophrenia in adult women. It is important to discuss this particular target group for several reasons. First, Chernomas, Clarke and Chisholm (2000) note that among schizophrenics in general, adult women have some very unique healthcare needs. Specifically, their healthcare concerns are said to differ from those of men in a variety of ways such as whether to continue medication while pregnant, motherhood issues, and often adult schizophrenic women have sexual abuse issues. Further, schizophrenic symptoms tend to increase during pregnancy and postpartum.

Also, Chernomas, Clarke and Chisholm (2000) point out that while the average age of onset for men is 21 years of age, the av

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ld incorporate psychotherapy that is designed to specifically help women patients, and provide a special focus for women who are mothers and for women who want to return to or begin a career outside their homes. The author stated that such programs would enable women with schizophrenia to capitalize on their current psychosocial strengths and improve their quality of life after their psychotic symptoms improve. The foregoing point regarding special treatment programs for adult schizophrenic women has been suggested by several authors. These treatment strategies are discussed in the next section of this review. Treatment Strategies One female-specific treatment strategy is Estrogen Replacement Therapy or ERT. Like the research conducted by Akhondzadeh et. al. (2003), Kulkarni (2003) also conducted studies using estrogen as an adjunct to antipyschotic therapy. Unfortunately, the sample was again small (n=12). Nonetheless, the authors found the same results as did Akhondzadeh et. al. (2003) which is that women given estrogen experienced greater symptom reduction and did so faster than women not given estrogen. Thus, the study lends support to the use of ERT and to the theoretical notion of estrogen protection. Kulkarni (2003)
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Approximate Word count = 3719
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

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