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KMID : 1143820100060010017
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Anxiety and Mood
2010 Volume.6 No. 1 p.17 ~ p.23
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A Comparison Study on the Psychological Stresses of Families of Patients with Either Depression or Schizophrenia
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Kim Jin-Hee
Lee Eun-Jung
Jung Sung-Won
Sung Hyung-Mo
Sakong Jung-Kyu
Kim Jung-Bum
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Abstract
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Objective : This study compared the psychological stresses of depressed patients’ families with those of schizophrenic patients’ families. We investigated the influence of depressive patients’ clinical features and their families’ demographic characteristics on the families’ depressive symptoms and stresses.
Methods: Participants were 23 family members of depressed patients and 20 family members of schizophrenic patients. We measured the patients’ clinical features (duration of illness, number of previous hospitalizations, and satisfaction with medication), and each family member’s socioeconomic status and psychological characteristics (depressive mood, anxiety, family stress, and stress response), analyzing the data via independent t-test, chi-square test, and correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analyses.
Results: The depressed patients’ average clinical global impression (CGI) was significantly higher than that of the schizophrenic patients. The depressed patients’ family members showed stress responses significantly higher than those of schizophrenic patients’ family members. Furthermore, in depressed patients, frequency of hospitalization was positively correlated with family members’ stat anxiety. For both patient types, family stress was positively correlated with the patient’s severity of illness and the family’s state anxiety, trait anxiety, and stress response ; socioeconomic status was positively correlated with the family’s depressive symptoms ; the family’s state anxiety positively correlated with the family’s trait anxiety and stress response ; and the family’s trait anxiety positively correlated with the family’s stress response. Socioeconomic status predicted the family’s depressive symptoms, and socioeconomic, illness severity and stress response predicted family stress.
Conclusion: These findings suggest that both depressed patients’ families and schizophrenic patients’ families suffer from psychological stress. The study data also have important clinical implications, in that families of depressed patients need psychiatric intervention, as well as the patients themselves. In particular, family intervention should focus on psycho-education and stress coping strategies.
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KEYWORD
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Depression, Schizophrenia, Family, Psychological stress
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