Keywords
type of attitude towards mental illness
psycho-emotional sphere
family caregivers
endogenous mental disorders
How to Cite
Abstract
As in many countries, in Ukraine, family caregivers of mentally ill patients face a liability to which they are not usually prepared, that requires maximum involvement of personal adaptation resources of all family members and the activation of psychosocial resource of the family as a whole as an environment where a patient with endogenous mental illness lives, in order to ensure his re-socialization and rehabilitation. Family burden and family anxiety are factors that determine psychosocial resource of family and its potential in terms of providing optimal conditions for promoting psychosocial rehabilitation of patients with endogenous mental disorders. We examined 168 reference relatives of patients with paranoid schizophrenia and 75 reference relatives of patients with affective disorders (bipolar affective and recurrent depressive disorders), in which the levels of family stress and family anxiety were determined in the context of the psychosocial functioning of the subjects. The control group consisted of 55 mentally healthy individuals. The degree of family burden was assessed using a family burden rating scale according to G. Szmukler et al. (1994), the level of family anxiety was assessed according to the questionnaire «Analysis of family anxiety» E.G. Eidemiller and V. Justickis. It was revealed that high levels of family anxiety in reference relatives persist with a disease duration of up to 4 years and from 5 to 8 years, after which the indicators decrease to values that slightly differ from the control group. This probably indicates a gradual distance from the current family situation with a switch to other areas of life. With an increase in the duration of the disease, the level of family burden increases according to the subscales of negative assessments, while the decrease in the subscales of positive assessments, which reflects the focus of family members on the negative aspects of the disease. These patterns must be taken into account when developing an appropriate integrated system of medical and psychological support for families where patients with endogenous mental disorders live.
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