Resilience and sociooccupational functioning among caregivers of obsessive-compulsive disorder

Abstract

Context: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is known to cause significant burden to patients and their caregivers. Variables like stress, anxiety, depression, associated psychiatric co-morbidly, functionality, quality of life, family accommodation, stigma, and social support has been studied extensively, but the caregiver functionality has been overlooked. There is limited data on resilience and psycho social functioning in caregivers of OCD. Aims: The current study examines the level of socio occupational functioning and resilience in caregivers of persons with obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD). Settings and design: In our study 200 DSM5 OCD adult patients evaluated using Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) and the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (YBOCS) and their healthy primary caregivers were recruited in OCD clinic NIMHANS. Material and Methods: Caregivers were evaluated using the socio-demographic MINI, Resilience and Socio-Occupational Functioning Assessment Scale (SOFAS), in a cross-sectional interview. Statistics: Means and Standard Deviations (SD) were calculated for continuous variables; frequencies and percentages for categorical variables, for descriptive analyses. Shapiro-Wilk test was used to test the normality of data. Based on the distribution of the data, Pearson Correlation tests were used. Results: Patients had a mean YBOCS score of 25.8 (±5.4), 118/200(59%) had contamination/washing as the principle symptom. Caregivers of the OCD adult patients had varied levels of (17.22±9.09) resilience and moderate to severe impairment in (55.67±16.53) socio occupational functioning. Conclusions: Study result shows that higher the resilience better the socio occupational functioning in caregivers. Promoting a resilient coping style in caregivers would increase their socio occupational functioning.