Aswathy Anitha Roby1, Druhin Adavalath2, Padmini Cherukunnath3
BACKGROUND
Mental health is an important aspect of health, and it should be cherished,
promoted, and conserved, to the maximum. World-wide, around 450 million
people suffering from mental illness and contributing to important causes for years
lived with disability. Caring is a fundamental issue in the treatment of a patient
with mental illness. Majority of patients stay with their families and they have been
the mainstay of care giving for patients with mental illness. Taking care of chronic
mentally ill patients puts stress and burden on the caregivers. Caregivers use
different methods of coping. This study was conducted to assess burden among
caregivers of chronic mentally ill patients.
METHODS
This is a hospital based cross-sectional study. A consecutive sample of 150
caregivers of both inpatients and outpatients who satisfy the inclusion criteria,
attending psychiatry department were recruited in the study. Caregivers were
assessed with socio-demographic proforma. The burden assessment schedule
(BAS) developed by SCARF measures the burden experienced by caregivers of
chronic mentally ill patients. Statistical analysis was done using statistical package
for social sciences (SPSS). Categorical and quantitative variables were expressed
as frequency (percentage) and mean ± SD respectively. Chi-square test was used
to association between categorical variables.
RESULTS
Of the 150 participants, 16 % experienced mild burden, 57.3 % had moderate
levels of burden and 26.7 % had severe burden levels.
CONCLUSIONS
This study concluded that caregivers of the mentally ill individuals do undergo a
lot of burden or strain. Highest areas of burden were seen in the areas of physical
and mental health, external support, and spouse related. The caregivers are in
need of support and understanding. Clinicians dealing with the caregivers of
patients with chronic mental illness must systematically assess the coping
mechanisms of caregivers and encourage the use of adaptive and problem-focused
coping mechanism to improve the caregiving and patient related outcome. Hence,
there is a need to develop strategies that can help them such as providing them
with a support structure as well as counseling services.
