Significantly, whenever asked about their caregiving experience, the major eight products (in terms of frequency) have been positive about the action

Schizophrenia caregivers: a reaction to caregiving

Many caregivers answered that taking good care of the person is vital that you her or him (59.2 %) and they planned to look after the patient (fifty.step 3 %). A substantial proportion out-of caregivers replied which they was in fact match adequate to look after the average person (47.8 %), impression blessed to care for the in-patient (forty-two.0 %), with sufficient bodily electricity to look after the average person (43.3 %), enjoyed handling the average person (42.eight %), which taking care of the person means they are feel good (39.5 %) (come across Fig. 1).

However, a substantial proportion away from caregivers indicated that the latest caregiving experience was burdensome. In particular, caregivers revealed that caregiving had interrupted their dates (thirty-six.3 %), that their health has been around since worse because carrying out caregiving (36.step three %), impression sick all the time due to the fact undertaking care for the patient (thirty-five.0 %), maybe not seeing relatives and buddies as much as before (thirty two.5 %), having problems relaxing due to ongoing interruptions (30.dos %), and achieving to stop in performs (20.cuatro %).

A substantial ratio away from caregivers expressed useless support handling the new patient. In particular, caregivers replied they’d economic difficulties with this new patient’s demands and you may characteristics (34.cuatro %), that proper care had set an economic stress on their loved ones (thirty-five.0 %), that it is difficult to find help from their loved ones (thirty-five.7 %), one to their family remaining her or him alone to take care of the latest patient (twenty-eight.0 %), their family “dumped” caring for the in-patient on them (twenty eight.0 %), which their loved ones abandoned her or him because the carrying out worry (21.0 %).

Talk

In general, informal schizophrenia caregivers exhibited poorer health-related outcomes than non-caregiver controls. After matching schizophrenia caregivers with non-caregivers with similar demographic and health characteristics, a substantially greater proportion of caregivers reported experiencing the following symptoms and conditions: sleep difficulties, https://datingranking.net/crossdresser-dating/ insomnia, pain, headaches, heartburn, anxiety, and depression, all p <0.05. Schizophrenia caregivers also reported lower HRQoL and health utility compared with non-caregiver controls, all p <0.05. Indeed, the mean differences between schizophrenia caregivers and non-caregiver controls were larger than the MID for mental HRQoL and health utility.

Caregivers of schizophrenia patients and caregivers of patients with conditions other than schizophrenia reported similar poor health-related outcomes, although some differences emerged. After matching schizophrenia caregivers with caregivers of patients with conditions other than schizophrenia but with similar demographic and health characteristics, a substantially greater proportion of schizophrenia caregivers reported the following symptoms: sleep difficulties, insomnia, and anxiety, all p <0.05. Moreover, a substantially greater proportion of schizophrenia caregivers reported currently taking prescription medication for depression and a greater level of depression severity. Schizophrenia caregivers exhibited significantly lower mean mental HRQoL and health utility scores compared with caregivers of patients with other conditions, though these differences did not exceed our pre-defined threshold of meaningfully important differences, all p <0.05.

A prior review of published research of schizophrenia caregiver burden found that, overall, this population experiences deteriorated health, with stress problems, anxiety and depression . The current study corroborated these findings, as informal schizophrenia caregivers reported higher levels of these health issues relative to non-caregivers and caregivers of conditions other than schizophrenia. Zendijidjian et al. (2012) found that caregivers of patients with affective disorders scored significantly lower on all SF-36 domains than caregivers of schizophrenia patients . The current study, however, found significant differences on the MCS, but not the PCS when comparing schizophrenia caregivers and caregivers of other conditions. These differences could be due to the broader criteria provided for caregivers of other conditions in the current study. Papastavrou (2012), comparing schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and cancer caregivers, on the other hand, found that caregivers of cancer patients experienced the highest levels of depression, while Alzheimer’s caregivers experienced the highest levels of overall burden (p <0.001) . Unlike previous studies of schizophrenia caregivers, the current study employed a representative sample of schizophrenia caregivers, directly comparing HRQoL and comorbidities for schizophrenia caregivers with non-caregiver controls, and schizophrenia caregivers with other caregivers. Because of this, making direct comparisons with prior studies is limited. However, a prior study using 2010 and 2011 5EU NHWS reports higher MCS, PCS and health utility scores for cancer caregivers than the current studies schizophrenia caregivers , suggesting potentially poorer HRQoL for schizophrenia caregivers than caregivers of cancer patients. Therefore, overall, given previous literature and the current study results, the health status of schizophrenia caregivers were found to be comparable if not worse than caregivers of other conditions.