Effectiveness of psycho-education on knowledge regarding schizophrenia and caregivers’ burden among caregivers of patients with schizophrenia – A randomized controlled trial

Background. Schizophrenia is one of the commonly occurring disorders, often causing a high degree of disability to the patients, as well as being stressful to the caregivers. Objectives. To find the efficacy of psycho-education on knowledge regarding schizophrenia among caregivers and reducing their level of burden. Material and methods. A randomized controlled trial was used to assess the effectiveness of psycho-education among caregivers of patients with schizophrenia. This study was conducted at a selected state government mental hospital in Karnataka, India. 350 caregivers were randomly assigned to study (n = 175) and control groups (n = 175). Both the group subjects were initially assessed for knowledge and burden. The study group caregivers participated in one or two psycho-education sessions with routine nursing care. Control group subjects received routine care in the hospital. Post-intervention assessment was done at the end of one-month and three-month intervals. Results. At pre-test, the study group caregivers’ mean knowledge scores were mean = 22.93, SD = 17.03, which was improved to mean = 85.90, SD = 9.51 at the one-month follow-up and mean = 97.94, SD = 4.41 at the three-month follow-up. This improvement was statistically significant at a 0.01 level when compared to control group caregivers. The study group caregivers’ mean burden scores that were initially recorded at pre-test mean = 82.37, SD = 10.40 reduced to mean = 49.13, SD = 8.28 at the one-month follow-up and mean = 40.86, SD = 6.27 at the three-month follow-up. This improvement was statistically significant at a 0.01 level when compared to control group caregivers. Conclusions. The study group caregivers showed an improvement in knowledge gain and a reduction in care burden. The present study findings provided evidence for the role of psycho-education intervention in reducing care burden among caregivers of patients with schizophrenia and was also found effective in caring for their relatives with appropriate knowledge.