A Study of Psychological Stress and Burden on Caregivers of Schizophrenic Patients

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a chronic severe mental illnesswhich not only affects patients but also causes significantburden and stress to the caregivers. There is definite lack ofstudies in India exploring caregiver burden and psychologicalstress. Study objective was to assess psychological stress andburden on caregivers of schizophrenic patients.Material and methods: The study sample included 52patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and their caregivers,randomly selected from the patients coming to the OPD of twotertiary care centres in Bareilly, as per inclusion and exclusioncriteria. Burden Assessment Schedule and General healthquestionnaire-12 were used for the study.Results: Our study also shows that 42.31% caregiversexperienced severe burden. Caregivers of patients with lowlevels of education reported greater burden. Parents andspouses reported moderately higher level of burden, butsiblings reported highest level of burden. Parents had greaterpsychological stress as compared to spouses and siblings.Caregivers with higher psychological stress found to haveheavier caregiving burden.Conclusion: Caregivers of schizophrenic patients sufferedfrom significant burden. It thus becomes important to planinterventions that would reduce their burden of care and thusimproving their psychological well-being.