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Quality of life among family caregivers of people with schizophrenia in rural China

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Abstract

Purposes

To investigate quality of life (QoL) of family caregivers of people with schizophrenia and examine the influencing factors of the QoL in a Chinese rural area.

Methods

This study included people with schizophrenia (n = 269) and their family caregivers (n = 269) from Xinjin district, Chengdu, China. Family caregivers’ QoL was measured by the World Health Organization Quality of Life-Brief Form and its influencing factors was analyzed by the multivariate regression.

Results

Family caregivers of people with schizophrenia had very poor QoL across four domains. The regression analysis showed that physical domain of QoL was significantly associated with age, psychiatric symptoms of people with schizophrenia, and caregiving burden of family caregivers (p < 0.05). Psychological domain of QoL was significantly related to family caregivers’ affiliate stigma, caregiving burden, and psychiatric symptoms of people with schizophrenia (p < 0.05). Social domain of QoL was significantly associated with age and psychiatric symptoms of people with schizophrenia, and affiliate stigma of family caregivers (p < 0.05). Environmental domain of QoL was significantly related to age and psychiatric symptoms of people with schizophrenia, and family caregivers’ caregiving burden (p < 0.05).

Conclusion

Family caregivers of people with schizophrenia had poor QoL in rural China. Family caregivers’ QoL is significantly impacted by age and psychiatric symptoms of people with schizophrenia, caregivers’ affiliate stigma and caregiving burden. Providing social support and psychosocial interventions for family caregivers of people with schizophrenia might be crucial to improve their QoL and caregiving.

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Data availability

The de-identified data are available on reasonable request to the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all the collaborative institutes (Chengdu Xinjin Second People’s Hospital, Township hospitals in Chengdu Xinjin district), research collaborators and participants for support and data collection.

Funding

This study is funded by the General Research Fund (GRF, Grant no. 17605618, 2018–2021, PI: Ran MS).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Shu-Yu Deng, Yi-Zhou Wang & Mao-Sheng Ran

  2. Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, 519087, China

    Man-Man Peng

  3. Department of Social Work, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

    Tian-Ming Zhang

  4. Chengdu Xinjin Second People’s Hospital, Chengdu, China

    Ming Li & Wei Luo

  5. Mental Health Center and Psychiatric Laboratory, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, China

    Mao-Sheng Ran

Authors
  1. Shu-Yu Deng
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  2. Yi-Zhou Wang
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  4. Tian-Ming Zhang
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  5. Ming Li
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Contributions

MSR designed this study. MSR and YZW conducted this study. MSR, YZW, ML, and WL collected data. SYD conducted data analysis. SYD and MSR wrote the first draft of the paper. All authors made contributions to critical revision of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mao-Sheng Ran.

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Deng, SY., Wang, YZ., Peng, MM. et al. Quality of life among family caregivers of people with schizophrenia in rural China. Qual Life Res 32, 1759–1769 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-023-03349-6

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