Quality of life of care giver of chronic psychiatric patients with its associates

Abstract

Introduction- Chronically ill psychiatric patients require assistance from their family members for their supervision and even in daily activity of life. Often this impose a major burden on caregivers, placing them at a great risk of mental and physical problems leading to impaired quality of life. Methodology- A cross-sectional study was conducted on 60 care givers of patients with chronic psychiatric illness. WHO-QOL BREF scale was used to assess quality of life. Chi-square test was use to find out associations. Result- Mean age of caregivers was 36.8 years with mean care giving years 22.3 years. Majority of care givers were mails with M:F ratio 5. The mean total score of QOL care givers was found excellent (87.8%) i.e. 98.37 with standard deviation 6.97. Maximum QOL score was found in physical domains followed by environmental, psychological and social domain of Qol. Social domain was most affected domain. These variation of score as per various scores was found with significant variation. On further analysis in this study no association was found between QOL scores and characteristics of care givers. Conclusion: Although in many studies quality of life of care givers was found badly affected but surprisingly in this study it was not found much affected. Social domain was most affected domain As most affected domain was found social which may be because of social stigma attached to it, so awareness in community is needed.