Posttraumatic Growth and Impacting Factors in Caregivers of Patients with Schizophrenia

ABSTRACT

Caregiving for a schizophrenic patient is traumatic for caregivers. Negative effects of this experience have been evaluated, however, the data about posttraumatic growth of caregivers of schizophrenic patients is limited. We aimed to investigate the posttraumatic growth and affecting factors in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia in this study. Eighty patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and their primary caregivers (each, n = 80) were included. The patients’ demographic data and their caregivers’ psychiatric history, posttraumatic growth level, religious commitment, and social support were investigated. The impact of the factors associated with patients and their caregivers on posttraumatic growth level were analyzed with regression analysis. Regression analysis revealed that perceived social support, religious commitment, and posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis were independent affecting factors of posttraumatic growth level. The present study shows that perceived social support, religious commitment, and posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis are independent affecting factors of posttraumatic growth. Few studies have investigated posttraumatic growth in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia, and further studies should be performed to support caregivers effectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychosis
• caregiving
• posttraumatic stress disorder
• psychological trauma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical Standards and Informed Consent

all procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation [institutional and national] and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.