Burden And Coping Behaviour Among the Family Caregivers of the People With Mental Illness

Abstract

Introduction: Caring for a person with mental disorder is a challenge for the caregivers. Little is known about the ways in which families cope while caring for a relative with mental illness in developing countries. This study has tried investigating the family burden and coping behaviour among the family caregivers of the people with mental illness.

Material And Method: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at Devdaha Medical College during the period of July 2019-December 2019. The research was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Institutional Review Board of Devdaha Medical College. The protocol approval number is 028/2019. Convenient sampling method was used. Data analysis was done in SPSS (Version 23, SPSS Inc, Chicago, USA). Results were presented as frequencies and percentages where required.

Results: Moderate Burden was experienced by 72% of the caregivers while the rest 28% experienced severe burden. People whose spouses were mentally ill had severe burden. Males coped with higher degree of problem and emotional focused coping strategy than females. Males felt more burden in comparison to the females and burden was found to be significantly higher among the caregivers who were taking care of their mentally ill spouses.

Conclusion: Caregiving is physically and psychologically demanding as it requires an enormous physical and emotional commitment as well as some basic skills. Teaching skills in the form of problem solving and communication are needed to promote the coping abilities and lessen the burden of caregivers.