Abstract
BackgroundSchizophrenia is a chronic illness which brings detrimental effects in the caregivers' health. This study was aimed at highlighting the socio-demographic, clinical and psychosocial factors associated with the subjective Quality of Life (QOL) of Malaysian of primary family caregivers of subjects with schizophrenia attending an urban tertiary care outpatient clinic in Malaysia.MethodsA cross-sectional study was performed to study patient, caregiver and illness factors associated with the QOL among 117 individuals involved with caregiving for schizophrenia patients. The study used WHOQOL-BREF to assess caregivers' QOL and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) to assess the severity of patients' symptoms. Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) assessed the stress level due to life events.ResultsThe mean scores of WHOQOL-BREF in physical, psychological, social and environmental domains were 66.62 (14.36), 61.32 (15.52), 62.77 (17.33), 64.02 (14.86) consecutively. From multiple regression analysis, factors found to be significantly associated with higher QOL were higher educational level among caregivers in social and environmental domains; caregivers not having medical problem/s in physical and psychological domains; later onset and longer illness duration of illness in social domains; patients not attending day care program in environmental domain; lower BPRS score in physical and environmental domains. SRRS score of caregivers was also found to have a significant negative correlation with QOL in environmental and psychological domains. Other factors were not significantly associated with QOL.ConclusionCaregivers with more social advantages such as higher educational level and physically healthier and dealing with less severe illness had significantly higher QOL in various aspects. Supporting the caregivers in some of these modifiable factors in clinical practice is important to achieve their higher level QOL.
Highlights
Schizophrenia is a chronic and profoundly disabling psychiatric disorder [1]
Previous studies concluded that caregivers of schizophrenia patients were at risk of having lower Quality of Life (QOL) due to mental health problems and higher caregiver burden [8, 9]
A number of sociodemographic and clinical factors were found to be significantly associated with one or more domains of WHOQOL-BREF (Table 2)
Summary
Schizophrenia is a chronic and profoundly disabling psychiatric disorder [1]. In Malaysia, there are increasing number of people with newly diagnosed schizophrenia receiving psychiatric care [2, 3]. Previous studies concluded that caregivers of schizophrenia patients were at risk of having lower QOL due to mental health problems and higher caregiver burden [8, 9]. Their subjective QOL was found to be similar to that of the patients but lower than that of a general population sample. This study was aimed at highlighting the socio-demographic, clinical and psychosocial factors associated with the subjective Quality of Life (QOL) of Malaysian of primary family caregivers of subjects with schizophrenia attending an urban tertiary care outpatient clinic in Malaysia
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