Assessment of Coping Strategies Among Family Caregivers of Psychotic Patients

Abstract

Background: Coping is understood as the process of managing external or internal demands that are considered as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person. There is no formal classification of coping strategies, and these are understood as adaptive versus maladaptive. Aim: To assess coping strategies of family caregivers of psychotic patients. Subjects and Method: A descriptive correlation design using a convenience sample of family caregivers of 100 of psychotic patients recruited from the Psychiatry and Neurology Hospital at Assiut University. Tools: Socio- demographic characteristics of family caregivers and Coping Strategies Inventory Short – Form (CSI-SF) were used. Findings: Caregivers use emotion focused engagement strategies more than other subscales with a mean of (10.0±4.4), followed by emotion focused disengagement strategies (9.2±4.1). Conclusion: Family caregivers greatly used emotion focused engagement and emotion focused disengagement to cope with their psychotic patients. Recommendation: Further studies is needed to explore the relation between socio-demographic characteristics and coping strategies of family caregivers of psychotic patients