Publication:

Effectiveness of family based educational program on burden of care and stress among family caregivers of young adults with chronic mental disorders: a pilot study report

Background Living with and caring for a young adult with mental disorders is often challenging and induce enormous amount of burden and stress to Family Care Givers. This area has not received adequate attention in India.

Methods Caregiver’s Stress Scale (KSSC) was used to assess the stress and Burden Assessment Schedule was used to assess the burden of care. The family care givers in the intervention group were provided with family-based intervention on two alternative days and the standard care group received only routine care. A post test was conducted on 30th, 90th and 180 days. Independent t-test was applied to establish the effectiveness of family-based intervention on burden and stress. X2 test and Fisher’s test was computed to find the association of burden and stress with selected demographic variables.

Results Family based educational program was found to be effective in reducing the burden of care and stress among the FCGs (p≤0.001). The study revealed statistically significant association between the age and gender of caregiver to burden and financial support of the caregivers to stress.

Conclusions The findings of the study suggest family based educational program on home care of young adults with chronic mental disorders was found to be effective in reducing the burden of care and stress among the family caregivers.