Psychological Distress and Quality of Life in Male and Female Caregivers of Schizophrenics

Abstract

Psychological Distress which is described as psychological discomfort. The symptoms can be described as sadness, distraction, anxiety, feeling depressed and in most severe case psychotic symptoms. Causes of psychological distress are many events happening daily in an individual’s life such as, everyday stressors, severe stressors, traumatic events, medical illness and mental illness. It is defined as feeling of unease and feeling unstable and usually at a level that is effecting in daily activities such as, workplace, school, self-care etc. Quality of Life, can be defined as the pattern in which a person lives and carry out their daily activities. Properly functioning of all domains of life of an individual such as physical, emotional, and social domain of individual’s life. It can also say an individual’s overall well-being in their life is what quality of life is. The sample size taken for the study was 100 in total i.e. 50 for males and 50 for females. The variables undertaken in research were Quality of Life, Psychological Distress and Male and Female Caregivers. Hypotheses of study was i) there will be significant relationship between Psychological Distress & Quality of Life among Male and Female Caregivers of Schizophrenics. ii) There will be significant difference on the level of Psychological Distress among Male and Female Caregivers of Schizophrenics. iii) There will be significant difference among Quality of Life of Male and Female Caregivers of Schizophrenics. Whoqol-bref and Kessler psychological distress (k10) tools were used in research. The findings of the study were: i) No relationship between Psychological Distress and Quality of Life among male caregivers of schizophrenic patients. ii) Similarly no relationship was found between psychological distress and quality of life among female caregivers. iii) No significant difference was found on the level of Quality of Life and Psychological Distress among male and female caregivers of Schizophrenic patients.