Predictors of Burden on Caregivers of Patients of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder: The Case of Butajira, Ethiopia Merga BeJilla
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Date
2008-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence and nature of the objective burden
experienced by caregivers of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients. Also to
compare the results from the two statistical methods, polytomous logi stic regression and
discriminant analysis in correctly classifying and selecting important explanatory
variables of burden on caregivers in psychiatric patients. A total of 514 patients were
included in this study. Burden on the caregivers was assessed in telms of how much the
caregiver's life was affected by the presence of the illness in the family. Results indicate
that 36.5% of the caregivers experienced no burden, whereas 36.9% of them experienced
moderate burden. The polytomous ordinal logistic regression classified 67.2% of the
caregivers in their respective burden group, whereas the discriminant analysis classified
64.7% of the caregivers correctly. The polytomous ordinal logistic regression shows a
slight improvement in correctly classifying caregivers over multiple discriminant
analysis. Based on the findings of the present study we conclude that high burden on the
caregivers is signi ficantly characterized by dependency status of the patient, emotional
helps given to the care giver from the society, negative and positive symptom of the
patient. The results call for more attention to be given to reduce patients ' positive and
negative symptoms, to create awareness in the society to give emotional helps to the
caregivers and to economically support the patients so as to minimize their dependency
on their caregivers.