Silent Pain of Caregivers: A Qualitative Study (original) (raw)

Background: Both theoretical and empirical evidences on chronic illness suggest negative consequences of caregiving on the psychological wellbeing and Quality of Life (QOL) of the caregivers. However, the fact remain that there is a paucity of empirical researches on the quality of life of caregivers of people with chronic mental illness. Purpose: The purpose of the present research is to assess the Emotional Quality of Life among caregivers of person with chronic mental illness across gender. Setting: Psychiatric Hospitals and clinics Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. Participants: The sample comprised of 100 primary caregivers of person (50 were male caregivers and 50 were Female caregivers) with diagnosed chronic mental illness of Schizophrenia, Anxiety Disorder, Personality disorder, Depression and Bipolar affective disorder (BPAD). Those willing to participate in the study were interviewed to assess their Emotional quality of life. Results: The female caregivers painfully construe caregiving as sadness and also attribute caregiving to be the source of their sadness in life. Somewhere there is a fatalist attitude adding greater pain in their life and they cope with pain and sadness largely by crying. On the other hand, male caregivers have reported painful and conflictual relationship with the patient as the perceived meaning of sadness and pain both. However, they cope up with the same by moving away and sharing with people. Globally the self-image of the caregivers is negative more specifically after the caregiving. The narratives of the caregiver are subsumed in a model. Conclusions: The findings of the study serve as the roadmap for furthering researches into emotional wellbeing of the caregivers of the person with chronic mental illness. Largely the attention is more towards creating intervention for the patients suffering from mental illness. Such studies would serve as the base for creating and improved emotional Quality of life for the caregivers.