Mental health and wellbeing in family caregivers of patients with schizophrenia disorder: a literature review

Up to 50% of patients with schizophrenia disorder live with family. Family, as informal, unpaid caregivers, provide support for patients by assisting with activities of daily living, illness management, financial assistance, emotional support, and more. The high resource demand caregiving activities entail take a toll on caregivers' mental health and wellbeing. As the wellbeing of caregivers is significantly associated with improved patients' symptom management, increased service utilization, reduced hospitalizations, and relapse reduction, improving the mental health and wellbeing of caregivers should be priority. The aim of this review is to provide a unique summary of the last 20 years of literature focusing on the mental health and wellbeing of family caregivers of patients with schizophrenia disorder in developed countries through searching of five databases, including MedLine, Web of Science, ProQuest, PsycInfo, and Embase, using keywords related to schizophrenia, caregiving, and mental health. Findings indicated that caregivers' mental health and wellbeing was affected by increased burden, escalated emotional and physical stress, decreased quality of life due to declining social lives, safety concerns, and lacking formal and informal support. However, findings also indicate that enhancing coping skills and consideration of the positive aspects of caregiving served to ameliorate these effects. This review supports the call for more programs and interventions targeting caregiving-associated stress and burden, the mobilization of formal and informal support, and enhancement of coping skills and resiliency, are required to improve mental health and wellbeing among caregivers.