Significantly, whenever asked about the caregiving experience, the big 7 situations (with regards to regularity) had been confident in the experience

Schizophrenia caregivers: reaction to caregiving

The majority of caregivers responded you to definitely looking after the in-patient is actually important to her or him (59.2 %) and that they planned to care for the patient (50.3 %). A hefty proportion out-of caregivers responded that they were match adequate to care for the average person (47.8 %), feeling blessed to look after the individual (forty two.0 %), which have sufficient real energy to care for the person (43.3 %), enjoyed handling the patient (42.7 %), which looking after individual makes them be more confident (39.5 %) (select Fig. 1).

Yet not, a substantial ratio off caregivers showed that new caregiving feel is actually burdensome. Specifically, caregivers showed that caregiving got disrupted their dates (thirty-six.step three %), you to their health has been around since worse due to the fact undertaking caregiving (thirty six.step three %), perception worn out for hours on end as https://datingranking.net/dog-dating/ the performing look after the diligent (35.0 %), perhaps not checking out friends and family to just before (thirty two.5 %), having trouble relaxing because of lingering interruptions (29.2 %), and having to get rid of in the center of really works (20.4 %).

A substantial ratio off caregivers shown inadequate help taking care of the new patient. Particularly, caregivers answered they had monetary difficulties with the fresh new patient’s needs and you can properties (34.4 %), that the care and attention got place a financial strain on their loved ones (thirty-five.0 %), it is difficult to find help from their family (thirty five.7 %), you to their family remaining her or him alone to undertake this new patient (twenty eight.0 %), their loved ones “dumped” taking care of the average person on them (28.0 %), hence their family given up them because doing proper care (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, 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.