Schizophrenia caregivers: a reaction to caregiving
The majority of caregivers responded you to looking after the average person was important to her or him (59.2 %) and they desired to care for the patient (50.3 %). A substantial ratio from caregivers answered that they have been match enough to care for the average person (47.8 %), perception blessed to care for the individual (forty-two.0 %), which have sufficient physical strength to care for the individual (43.step 3 %), liked taking care of the patient (42.eight %), hence taking good care of the in-patient makes them feel a lot better (39.5 %) (look for Fig. 1).
Although not, a substantial proportion of caregivers indicated that the brand new caregiving experience try burdensome. In particular, caregivers revealed that caregiving got disrupted its schedules (thirty-six.3 %), one to their health came into existence tough just like the starting caregiving (36.step 3 %), impression worn out all day long since doing care for the patient (thirty-five.0 %), not visiting friends as much as before (thirty-two.5 %), having difficulty relaxing on account of constant disturbances (29.dos %), and having to stop in the exact middle of functions (20.4 %).
A hefty proportion regarding caregivers expressed useless assistance taking care of the fresh new patient. Specifically, caregivers responded that they had monetary difficulties with this new patient’s demands and you can features (34.cuatro %), the proper care got place an economic stress on their family (35.0 %), it is difficult to get help from their family (thirty-five.seven %), one their loved ones kept them by yourself to carry out the fresh diligent (twenty eight.0 %), their loved ones “dumped” taking care of the patient on them (28.0 %), and therefore their family abandoned them just like the undertaking proper care (21.0 %).
Dialogue
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, insomnia, pain, headaches, online Cougar dating 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.