Coping with caregiving stress among caregivers of patients with schizophrenia

This study aimed to evaluate the coping strategies, including religious coping, used by the caregivers of patients with schizophrenia to deal with caregiving stress. Caregivers of 100 patients with schizophrenia, currently in clinical remission, were evaluated on Ways of the coping questionnaire, Brief religious coping scale, and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). More often use of adaptive coping mechanisms (such as seeking social support, accepting responsibility, planful problem solving, and positive reappraisa) was associated with a lower level of residual symptoms and better functioning of the patient, and lower level of psychological morbidity as per the GHQ-12 among the caregivers. A higher grade of negative symptoms, general psychopathology, and PANSS total score was associated with lower use of positive religious coping and higher use of negative religious coping in the caregivers. More severe psychological morbidity among the caregivers was associated with lower use of positive religious coping and higher use of negative religious coping. To conclude, this study depicts that caregivers of patients with schizophrenia use a mixture of adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies, including religious coping. The use of adaptive coping is associated with better patient-related outcomes and lower levels of psychological morbidity/distress among caregivers. Whereas, more frequent use of maladaptive coping is associated with both patients' and caregivers' outcomes.