Quality of Life in the Caregivers of Schizophrenic Patients

Background: Caregivers play an important role in the support, management, recovery and care of schizophrenia patients throughout life. Caregivers not only manage the patient in home situation but also help in improving the condition and prevent from further relapse. While supporting the patients emotionally, financially and socially it often results in feelings of burden in caregivers. This affects the caregiver's overall life and specifically their quality of life adversely. Objective: The present study is an attempt to explore the quality of life in the caregivers of inpatient and outpatient schizophrenia patients. Method: A total of 40 schizophrenia patients, 20 inpateint and 20 outpatient, along with their caregivers were selected by using purposive sampling technique from PGIBAMS, Raipur (C.G). Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) was administered on the patient to assess the severity of the symptoms and WHO-Quality of Life-Bref was administered on the caregivers to assess the quality of life. Results: Caregivers of inpatient schizophrenia patient showed disturbances in social functioning in terms of impaired interpersonal relationships and poor social support than caregivers of outpatient schizophrenic patients. Severity of symptoms has been found to be negatively correlated with physical health area of the caregivers indicating lack of energy, fatigability, impaired work performance, disturbed sleep and inability to get relaxed. Conclusion: The study highlights that the caregivers of inpatient schizophrenic patients face problems in the social functioning area, personal relationships and support system in comparison to the caregivers of outpatient schizophrenic patients. Caregivers also exhibited problems in their physical health as the severity of symptoms in schizophrenic patients increase.