A study to assess the level of caregivers burden and associate with the socio demographic factors of caregivers of patients with Schizophrenia- A cross sectional study

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Sunanda Govinder Thimmajja

Dharwad Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, India

: Int J Ment Health Psychiatry

Abstract

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Background: Schizophrenia is one of the most debilitating psychiatric disorders worldwide. Caring for patients with schizophrenia is a significant burden on the families and caregivers. The role of the patients’ families is dominant in the treatment process. Hence, the related problems are experienced more in the family environment, which affects their daily life. Aim: To find out the level of caregivers’ burden and associate with the socio-demographic factors of caregivers of patients with schizophrenia. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study, by convenience sample of 175 primary family caregivers was taken from selected Psychiatric Hospital at Dharwad, Karnataka. Tools included a socio-demographic information sheet and the Burden assessment schedule for assess the level of care givers burden. Results: The results reveals that majority 108(61.7%), caregivers had high level of burden and 67(38.3%) had average level of burden and associated with sociodemographic variable of caregivers, the findings depicts that all selected socio-demographic variable are associated with level of caregiver burden. Conclusion: The findings highlighted the importance of sense of social-demographic characteristics of caregivers’ and their hardiness is in individual towards to coping to burden. Special attention needs to focus on therapeutic interventions that enhance sense of coping towards burden, individually and, thereby decreases the level of burden of care and effective family functioning.

Biography

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Sunanda Govinder Thimmajja has completed her Ph.D in nursing. She is the Assistant Professor at DIMHANS, Dharwad, Karnataka, India. She has more than 15 years of working experience in mental health care settings as a nurse educator and psychiatric nurse expert. She has published more than 25 research papers in reputed journals.