Schizophrenia caregivers: response to caregiving
The majority of caregivers replied that taking care of the person is actually vital that you him or her (59.dos %) and that they planned to look after the diligent (50.step 3 %). A hefty proportion off caregivers answered that they was indeed fit sufficient to care for the patient (47.8 %), impact privileged to look after individual (forty-two.0 %), that have adequate bodily strength to look after individual (43.3 %), liked handling individual (42.seven %), and this taking good care of the person means they are feel better (39.5 %) (come across Fig. 1).
Although not, a substantial proportion regarding caregivers indicated that the newest caregiving experience is actually difficult. In particular, caregivers indicated that caregiving got disturbed its schedules (thirty-six.step 3 %), you to their bodies has been around since worse as carrying out caregiving (thirty six.step 3 %) 
, perception tired non-stop because carrying out look after the diligent (thirty five.0 %), not seeing friends and family up to before (thirty-two.5 %), having trouble relaxing on account of lingering disturbances (29.dos %), and having to quit in the middle of works (20.4 %).
A hefty proportion off caregivers expressed useless support looking after the fresh diligent. In particular, caregivers replied that they had economic problems with new person’s demands and you will properties (34.cuatro %), your worry got place a monetary strain on their loved ones (thirty-five.0 %), it is difficult to get assistance from their family (35.eight %), you to definitely their loved ones remaining him or her alone to undertake this new diligent (twenty eight.0 %), their family “dumped” taking good care of the person to them (28.0 %), and therefore their loved ones quit them since the creating proper care (21.0 %).
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In general, informal schizophrenia caregivers exhibited poorer health-related outcomes than non-caregiver controls. After matching schizophrenia caregivers with non-caregivers with similar demographic and health characteristics, a substantially greater proportion of caregivers reported experiencing the following symptoms and conditions: sleep difficulties, insomnia, pain, headaches, heartburn, anxiety, and depression, all p <0.05. Schizophrenia caregivers also reported lower HRQoL and health utility compared with non-caregiver controls, all p <0.05. Indeed, the mean differences between schizophrenia caregivers and non-caregiver controls were larger than the MID for mental HRQoL and health utility.
Caregivers of schizophrenia patients and caregivers of patients with conditions other than schizophrenia reported similar poor health-related outcomes, although some differences emerged. After matching schizophrenia caregivers with caregivers of patients with conditions other than schizophrenia but with similar demographic and health characteristics, a substantially greater proportion of schizophrenia caregivers reported the following symptoms: sleep difficulties, insomnia, and anxiety, all p <0.05. Moreover, a substantially greater proportion of schizophrenia caregivers reported currently taking prescription medication for depression and a greater level of depression severity. Schizophrenia caregivers exhibited significantly lower mean mental HRQoL and health utility scores compared with caregivers of patients with other conditions, though these differences did not exceed our pre-defined threshold of meaningfully important differences, all p <0.05.
A prior review of published research of schizophrenia caregiver burden found that, overall, this population experiences deteriorated health, with stress problems, anxiety and depression . The current study corroborated these findings, as informal schizophrenia caregivers reported higher levels of these health issues relative to non-caregivers and caregivers of conditions other than schizophrenia. Zendijidjian et al. (2012) found that caregivers of patients with affective disorders scored significantly lower on all SF-36 domains than caregivers of schizophrenia patients . The current study, however, found significant differences on the MCS, but not the PCS when comparing schizophrenia caregivers and caregivers of other conditions. These differences could be due to the broader criteria provided for caregivers of other conditions in the current study. Papastavrou (2012), comparing schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and cancer caregivers, on the other hand, found that caregivers of cancer patients experienced the highest levels of depression, while Alzheimer’s caregivers experienced the highest levels of overall burden (p <0.001) . Unlike previous studies of schizophrenia caregivers, the current study employed a representative sample of schizophrenia caregivers, directly comparing HRQoL and comorbidities for schizophrenia caregivers with non-caregiver controls, and schizophrenia caregivers with other caregivers. Because of this, making direct comparisons with prior studies is limited. However, a prior study using 2010 and 2011 5EU NHWS reports higher MCS, PCS and health utility scores for cancer caregivers than the current studies schizophrenia caregivers , suggesting potentially poorer HRQoL for schizophrenia caregivers than caregivers of cancer patients. Therefore, overall, given previous literature and the current study results, the health status of schizophrenia caregivers were found to be comparable if not worse than caregivers of other conditions.