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Objective: Schizophrenia is a severe and chronic psychiatric disorder, which has multiple challenges in its management for both patients and their caregivers. Burnout is a common issue in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia. However, several aspects of that issue have not been clearly understood. Previous results about the effect of clinic variables and caregiver characteristics on burnout have been conşicting. The purpose of the present study was to identify characteristics and correlates of burnout in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia.
Method: The study sample consisted of 76 caregivers of schizophrenia patients (according to DSM-IV-TR criteria), who has been suffering the disease for at least two years and admitted to a psychiatry clinic of the university hospital. Sociodemographic form, Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) were applied to the patients and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSP) were applied to the caregivers. MBI consists of 22 items and 3 subscales. Subscales assess emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment. Higher scores at emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, but lower scores at personal accomplishment represent increased severity of burnout.
Results: According to the clinical data of the patients (67.1%) of the caregivers were female. Mean age of them were 50.6±13.7. Thirty nine (51.3%) of the caregivers were unemployed. Duration of care was 23.9±11.9. The caregivers were spouses (23.7%), children (47.4%), siblings (19.7%) or parents (7.9%) of the patients. According to the mean scale scores of the caregivers there was no gender difference for any of the MBI scores (p>0.1).
Conclusion: The results of the present study revealed that most of the caregivers of patients with schizophrenia had high levels of burnout. Gender, duration of illness, duration of care and the SAPS scores had not been related with the burnout. The SANS scores had significant but weak correlations with MBI emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment scores. MSPSP scores were correlated with all subtypes of burnout. These results were consistent with those of other studies, which emphasized negative symptoms of the patients and inadequate social support of the caregivers as major factors for burnout (Dyck 1999, Gulseren 2010). Social programs and daily rehabilitation units can be applied to improve negative symptoms and psychotherapeutic interventions (group therapies or supportive therapies) should be considered for caregivers. Future studies to investigate efficiency of these interventions on burnout of the caregivers might be beneficial.