Assess Burden, Social Support, and Family Wellbeing among Caregivers of Mentally Ill Patients at Institute of Mental Health, Erragadda, Hyderabad, and Andhra Pradesh

A Non-experimental descriptive study was undertaken to assess the burden, social support and family wellbeing among caregivers of mentally ill patients at Institute of Mental health at Erragadda, Hyderabad. The conceptual framework adopted for the study was modified Penders' Health Promotion Model. It was modified to suit the purpose of the present study. The study was conducted at Institute of Mental Health at Erragadda, Hyderabad. The Sample for present study were 60 caregivers of Mentally ill patients. Non-probability convenient sampling technique was used, and a structured interview schedule was prepared to assess the burden, social support and family wellbeing among caregivers of mentally ill patients. The tool was given for content validity to the experts in the field of Psychiatry, Psychiatric nursing, Psychology and Psychiatric social worker. The reliability of the tool was tested by Spearman-Brown Split-Half method. It revealed that tool was reliable and the 'r' value was 0.6 for caregivers' burden, 0.8 for Social support and 0.7 for Family wellbeing. Pilot study was conducted at Asha hospital, Hyderabad on the subjects and tool was found feasible and the main study was conducted in Institute of Mental Health, Erragadda, Hyderabad.

Major findings of the study were 97 percent of caregivers of mentally ill patients had moderate burden, 5 percent had severe burden and 3 percent had mild burden. Regarding the social support 25 percent of caregivers had low social support, 42 percent of moderate social support and 33 percent of high social support. In response to family wellbeing, 25 percent of caregivers had low family wellbeing, 53 percent of moderate family wellbeing and 22 percent of high family wellbeing. The association between demographic variables and burden was found that a significant association between selected demographic variable such as occupation and relationship with care receiver with their burden scores at 0.05 level and there is no association between other demographic variables such as age, gender, education, religion, marital status, family income, family history of psychiatric illness and earlier experience of caring with their burden levels of caregivers of mentally ill patients.