Coping Strategies and Burden Stress in Caregivers of Patients with Schizophrenia and Patients with Bipolar Disorder

Abstract Background Mental illness has a great impact not only on patients but also on their caregivers as it makes them more prone to stress, interferes with their daily life activities and can negatively affects their social, psychological and physical health quality of life. They neglect seeking medical help that may negatively affect clinical outcome of patients and quality of their life. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the magnitude of burden on such caregivers and to investigate the coping strategies used by them in order to develop tailored bio psychosocial interventions to reduce their stress. Objective To assess the magnitude of burden and patterns of coping with stress in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia. To assess the magnitude of burden and patterns of coping with stress in caregivers of patients with bipolar affective disorder. To compare both the coping strategies and burden stress scores among caregivers of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar patients. Patients and Methods This cross sectional study was done on 100 caregivers to assess burden in caregivers of schizophrenia patients and caregivers of bipolar patients, the coping style used by the caregivers of both groups and comparing between two groups. Results There was statistically significant difference found between bipolar group and schizophrenia group regarding coping inventory scores make fun and behavioral withdrawal, which showed higher median score in schizophrenia group than bipolar group. Burden of caring and coping with this burden, affect each other mutually. As, according to the results of our study, rural residence of caregiver, positive reassessment ≤12 and denial >8 were found significantly associated with high burden in bipolar group. While employed caregivers were associated with high burden among schizophrenia group. Burden is higher in bipolar group than schizophrenia group. Conclusion Appraisal by, and burden on caregivers play a major role in determining their style of coping. These factors largely accounted for the differences in coping observed between caregivers of patients of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, in this study. Reducing burden on caregivers and enhancing their awareness of illness could lead to adoption of more adaptive coping styles by them.