“Schizophrenia: diagnosis, treatment, employment”

There are more than 400 000 people with schizophrenia in Poland, 260 000 of whom are young people aged 18 – 30. Research results show that such factors as genetic equipment, family life, social processes and neurobiological factors play significant role in the progress of this disease. Schizophrenia is one of the mental disorders and mostly touches people on their early adulthood. It manifests itself by impaired perception, auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, disorganized speech and thinking which causes significant social and professional problems. People with diagnosed schizophrenia are more likely to suffer depression and anxiety disorder. They also have to bear with such social problems as unemployment, poverty and homelessness and their life expectancy is smaller by 10 – 12 years because of the health problems. Those people are not able to start their career, which additionally lowers their self-confidence, they have bigger problems with establishing relationships and functioning in the society. The state divide people into healthy and ill ones, leaving people threatened by schizophrenia or in its early stadium alone, until the moment when the disease will be so visible and advanced to start treatment. At the moment of diagnosing schizophrenia many surrounding people – friends and colleagues distance themselves from a sick person. For this person it is difficult to be honest and to tell the truth about disease because it makes people turn away. People with schizophrenia also experience problems at work because of symptoms and false information about disease.