EVALUATION OF PSYCHIATRIC DISABILITY AMONG PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA IN RELATION TO DURATION OF UNTREATED ILLNESS- A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

BACKGROUND Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness associated with major disability in several spheres of a person's functioning. Duration of untreated illness is one of the important reasons for severe disability. Aim- The study was undertaken to evaluate the association between Duration of Untreated Illness (DUI) in patients with Schizophrenia and Sociodemographic variables and correlation between DUI and Disability. MATERIALS AND METHODS This cross-sectional study was undertaken at Government Hospital for Mental Care/ Andhra Medical College, Visakhapatnam. The convenience sampling of 162 patients attending OPD who were diagnosed with Schizophrenia as per ICD-10, age ranging between 18 and 65 years, currently under remission and on regular treatment for the past one year were included in the study. Statistical Analysis-Sociodemographic profile frequencies were calculated. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare data (Unequal Sample Size and Non-Normal Distribution) between groups and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient test was used to find the nature of association between DUI and Disability scores. RESULTS Duration of Untreated Illness is not showing significant association with Sociodemographic variables, gender, marital status, domicile, education or employment. long DUI not showing significant association with disability (p-value is 0.617) and correlation between DUI and disability scores do not reveal any significant relation (r-value=0.006, p-value 0.938). CONCLUSION There is a huge need to bring a greater number of patients who belong to the group-female, unmarried, low literacy, unemployed and rural, under the umbrella of treatment early. It is conceivable that the reported better outcome for schizophrenia in India is unlikely to be a cause of shorter DUI.