A psychosocial study of persons with chronic mental illness and family caregivers burden

Abstract

The present study examined the psychosocial factors of Persons with Chronic Mental Illness (PWCMI) and looked at whether burden of caring, has an effect on the gender of Family Caregivers (FCG s) and to develop a theoretical Social Work Intervention module for FCGs and their PWCMI, by combining education, support and community networking, in reducing burden and emotional distress. The sample comprised of 200 FCGs who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were recruited from the in-patient services of the Department of Psychiatry, St. Johns Medical College Hospital, (SJMCH) Bangalore. The study was conducted in 2 phases: Phase I was the Assessment Phase and Phase II was the Intervention Phase. The total number of registered in-patients during the period of data collection was 2,680. However, the majority of these in-patients, i.e. 1, 917 (71.53%) did not fall within the purview of the study. Of the 763 patients (i.e. 28.47%) diagnosed to be suffering with chronic mental illness, the target of 200 (7.46 %) FCGs and their PWCMI, as stipulated by the statistician (Dept. of Statistics, KUD), who fulfilled the study criteria were reached over a period of 24 months (November 2006 to October 2008), at an average of 8.33 persons per month. Phase I adopted a descriptive research design and FCG s and their PWCMI were selected through multiphase, purposive random sampling of in-patients diagnosed with schizophrenia (ICD -10, F-20, WHO, 2001). Phase II was the Brief Integrated Supportive Psycho-Social Intervention (BISPSI) study, for which 30 family caregivers were selected through multistage sampling, from the larger study group and employed a single group pre-post- follow-up design, with multiple variables. Data were collected by the researcher in face to face interviews. Socio-Demographic and Clinical Data Sheet were used to obtain socio-demographic and clinical profiles of PWCMI and their FCGs.