Schizophrenia in Malaysian families: A study on factors associated with quality of life of primary family caregivers

Abstract

Background: Schizophrenia 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. Methods: A 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. Results: The 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. Conclusion: Caregivers 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.

Assessment of quality of life among caregivers of persons with permanent disabilities attending rehabilitation centre in H. D. Kote Taluq, Mysore district, Karnataka, India

“…It is in line with findings of our study. 12 Eloise H. Tew and Sharon L observed that lower QOL scores were associated with duration of caregiving. 13 Sandeep Grover's study findings suggest that longer duration of care giving was associated with lower QOL scores.…”

Differences by Retrospective Illness Course on Burden,Expressed Emotion, Psychological Distress and Quality of Life in Relatives of Mexican Outpatients with Psychosis: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Although severe, the course following a first episode of psychosis is rather heterogeneous and outcomes may vary from full recovery to a deteriorating chronic course [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. It has been observed that between two and five years after the first episode, psychotic disorders seem to plateau and follow a more stable course [41], so that a fair prediction of course can be made by year three [42].…”

Quality of Life in Patients With Chronic Schizophrenia in Semnan, Iran

“…The quality of life in patients with schizophrenia is one of the major concerns of clinicians (4,5), which can be effective on determining the fallow-up for response to treatment, the rehabilitation, relapse prevention of disorders and maintenance of the promotion of their family's mental health (14). Due to the importance of the schizophrenia and its effect on quality of life, this study was conducted to determine which aspects of quality of life were affected by the disease.…”

“…The positive symptoms include hallucinations, delusions and disorganized thinking but the negative ones are speech disorders, lack of motivation and lack of pleasure and tending to be alone (3). Schizophrenia affects the quality of life, social activities and work and also education promotion (4).…”