Caregiver burden in patients with schizophrenia

Abstract

Background: Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric disorder. It imposes high level of burden on the caregivers who look after those patients. Previous studies tried to point out various factors which effected caregiver’s burden. Burden Assessment Schedule (BAS) is an Indian tool to assess severity of burden in chronic mentally ill patients.  Aims & objectives: to measure caregiver burden of patients with schizophrenia and to find out its various determinants in Bengali culture. Methodology: Consecutive 30 OPD patients fulfilling ICD-10 DCR criteria for schizophrenia and their caregivers, fulfilling inclusion and exclusion criterion were interviewed for socio-demographic data. Caregiver burden was measured on Burden Assessment Schedule. Collected data was assessed for statistically significant relation between socio-demographic variables and severity of burden. Results: Adjusted total score of burden was 64.26(±7.68). Statistically significant (p<0.05) relation was found between caregivers’ burden and their distribution of sex (p=0.013), educational status (p=0.006), family type (p=0.002) and residence (p=0.002). There was no significant relationship found between severity of burden and caregiver's socio-economic status, marital status, religion, occupation and with their relationship with patient (p>0.05)  Conclusion: Caregivers of  patients with schizophrenia suffer from high level of burden. Sex, education, family type, residence and duration of illness are statistically related to severity of burden.

Key word: schizophrenia, caregiver, burden assessment schedule, burden