Family Involvement in Psychiatric Rehabilitation: A Mixed-Methods Study on Caregiver Burden and Support Needs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69980/ajpr.v27i2.284Keywords:
Caregiver burden, Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Family Involvement, Mental Health Support, Mixed-Methods ResearchAbstract
Objective: Family caregivers serve as vital components of psychiatric rehabilitation because they deliver crucial emotional backing, financial assistance, and practical help to people with severe mental illnesses. Being a caregiver results in substantial psychological trauma through emotional stress, financial hardships, and social seclusion, which accumulates into caregiver burden. The research investigates both the magnitude of caregiver burden and its main causes while examining what support caregivers need to develop policy recommendations and intervention strategies.
Methods: The study implemented a convergent parallel mixed research approach combining quantitative questionnaires with 200 respondents alongside qualitative interviews from thirty participants to study care burden effects and support necessities. The Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI-22) together with the Caregiver Strain Index (CSI) and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) operated as quantitative tools and thematic analysis served the qualitative data assessment. The research used multiple regression and ANOVA and Pearson correlation to identify major burden predictors.
Results: The quantitative data shows that caregivers with moderate to severe burden (ZBI-22 mean = 41.7, SD = 9.5) experience significant relationships between their burden and social support deficits (β = -0.42, p < 0.001) and financial strain (β = 0.35, p = 0.002) and illness severity (β = 0.28, p = 0.004) and caregiving duration (β = 0.22, p = 0.009). The burden experienced by caregivers of schizophrenia patients reaches its peak level at M = 44.2 with SD = 8.9 according to ANOVA analysis (p < 0.001). The qualitative study data indicates that emotional distress, psychological suffering, as well as financial and social limitations exist alongside insufficient institutional care for patients. Organized programs offering support to caregivers become necessary because research analysis shows immediate necessity need for such interventions.
Conclusions: The research demonstrates that caregivers need extensive psychoeducational support together with financial assistance and institutional care programs to reduce their burden. Psychological help systems alongside digital care solutions together with flexible work environments lead to better caregiver welfare while resulting improved outcomes in psychiatric rehabilitation treatment. Additional research is needed to perform long-term assessments along with international comparisons to create enduring evidence-driven programs which will help caregivers.
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