The paper focuses on the genetic factors, as well as examining other factors, that may cause this mental illness.
The papers gives a brief history of the illness and presents its symptoms. It then presents a variety factors that are responsible for causing the illness such as an imbalance of chemicals in the brain, structural brain abnormalities, or abnormalities in the prenatal environment. The paper then explains that schizophrenia is also a biological disease caused by genetic factors. The paper explores the different theories behind this assertion. It then discusses the reasons behind the high prevalence of schizophrenia among blacks in Britain concluding that the cause may be social rather than genetic.
“Research has shown that inheritance of genes is the number one factor in determining one’s risk of developing schizophrenia (Mueser, para on Genetic factors.) Studies of family histories show that the more closely one is related to someone with schizophrenia, the greater the risk one has of developing the illness. For example, the children of one parent with schizophrenia have about a 13 percent chance of developing the illness, and children of both parents with schizophrenia have about a 46 percent chance of developing the illness. (Ibid.)”