TY - JOUR
TI - Factors associated with caregiver psychological distress in chronic
schizophrenia
AU - Mitsonis, Charalampos
AU - Voussoura, Eleni
AU - Dimopoulos, Nikolaos and
AU - Psarra, Vassiliki
AU - Kararizou, Evangelia
AU - Latzouraki, Eleni and
AU - Zervas, Iannis
AU - Katsanou, Maria-Nefeli
JO - Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
PY - 2012
VL - 47
TODO - 2
SP - 331-337
PB - Springer Berlin Heidelberg
SN - 0933-7954, 1433-9285
TODO - 10.1007/s00127-010-0325-9
TODO - Caregivers; Psychological distress; Chronic schizophrenia; SCL-90-R
TODO - Caregivers of patients with schizophrenia experience increased levels of
psychological distress. This study investigated the impact of caring for
patients with chronic schizophrenia on the mental health status of the
caregivers and described the relationship between various
socio-demographic and clinical characteristics and caregiving
psychological distress.
The study was carried out at the Psychiatric Hospital of Athens. The
Symptom Check List Revised (SCL-90-R) was administered to 87 caregivers
of chronic schizophrenia patients and 90 healthy controls. The Positive
and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was administered to schizophrenia
patients in order to assess illness severity.
The group of caregivers scored higher on the majority of symptom
dimensions of the SCL-90-R than the control group. Clinical features of
schizophrenia, i.e. duration of illness and PANSS positive and negative
symptoms significantly predicted caregiving psychological distress.
Caregivers’ and patients’ socio-demographic characteristics were not
associated with caregivers’ distress, with the exception of caregivers’
sex: female caregivers experienced significantly higher levels of
psychological distress than males.
The study suggests that clinical features of schizophrenia influence
distress levels in caregivers of patients with chronic schizophrenia.
The stronger predictors of distress appear to be female caregiver’s
gender, duration of illness as well as positive and negative
symptomatology.
ER -