Relationship Between Quality of Life and Social Support Among Patients with Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Many studies have demonstrated that quality of life (QoL) is poor among individuals suffering from severe mental illness like bipolar disorder (BD) and Schizophrenia due to various factors like residual symptoms, side effects of medication, and lack of social support. This study aims to explore the relationship between QoL and perceived social support among patients with schizophrenia and BD in remission and to identify the factors associated with QoL. A cross-sectional, descriptive study was carried out in a Psychiatry outpatient department of a tertiary care hospital. Patients diagnosed with BPAD and Schizophrenia as per International Classification Disorders-10 diagnostic criteria were recruited for the study. The WHO Quality of Life BREF Scale was used to assess quality of life and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support was used to assess social support. The mean age of Schizophrenia and the BD group was 35.86 years (± 11.40) and 38.34 years (± 11.10). In the quality of life domain, patients with schizophrenia had significantly high environmental health as compared to the bipolar group. More than one-half of patients with Schizophrenia and three-fifth of patients with BD perceived high support. The perceived support was found to be more from the family followed by friends and significant others. There was a significant positive correlation between social support and quality of life in patients with Schizophrenia only. Hence, psychosocial interventions aimed at improving social support needs to promoted in routine patient care Keywords Quality of life (QoL) Á Social support Á WHO quality of life BREF scale

Quality of Life of people with Schizophrenia: A meta-analysis

“…In this context, people with schizophrenia may have difficulty in establishing social relationships and finding social support from the people around them. Studies have also found that individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia have low scores in the social dimension of quality of life (Dong et al, 2019; Munikanan et al, 2017; Prabhakaran et al, 2021).…”

Sources of social support and clinical and functional evolution of people with schizophrenia

“…The impact of other specific support categories in line with those identified from the perspective of family members could also be explored (Chronister et al, 2020). Moreover, it would be of interest to analyze the data by gender due to the importance of gender roles in social support, and include results more focused on positive points such as recovery (Corrigan & Phelan, 2004; Cullen et al, 2017) and quality of life (Prabhakaran et al, 2021). It would also be of interest to identify specific subgroups in which intervention in family and nonfamily networks could exert a stronger effect on clinical and functional evolution (Beckers et al, 2022).…”

"Why I stay in community psychiatric rehabilitation": a semi-structured survey in persons with schizophrenia

“…In the present study, respondents indicated that they had higher friendships than other improvements, with someone even indicating that friendship was the most important gain. Previous studies have also shown that friendships made under community psychiatric rehabilitation centers are an important social support for patients, while social support is an important factor affecting the quality of life [ 37 , 38 ].…”