Health Related Quality of Life for Caregivers of Psychiatric Patients, Mathari National Teaching and Refferal Hospital, Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

The mentally ill patients have been shifted from institutions to home based care involving the family and the community than the straight in-hospital treatment. Consequently, the prevalence of mental illness is rising which is proportional to increased burden among the primary caregivers’ thus affecting their Health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The average prevalence of mental disorders in the world is 13.4%. In Kenya, mental health is a real concern and has been ranked 4th in Africa and 9th globally with highest number (1.9 million) of depressed persons leading to an increase in cases of suicides among mentally ill patients. The aim of this study was to determine the HRQoL and associated factors of primary caregivers of the mentally ill patients at Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital which is the largest teaching and referral psychiatry hospital in Kenya as at now. . The study used descriptive cross-sectional research design. Systemic random sampling was used to recruit 310 caregivers of mentally ill patients in the outpatient clinic. The WHOQoL-BREF questionnaire was used to assess Caregivers HRQoL. Statistical package for social sciences version 25.0 was used for analysis. Pearson was used to test relationships between variables and multivariate regression models were used to determine predictors of HRQoL. The findings revealed that on quality rating 1-5, Majority (34.4%, mean 2.61 SD 1.05) of the participants reported poor HRQoL. Caregivers’ marital status (.292, =0.000), relationship with the patient (.166, =0.004) and patient gender (.188, =0.001) significantly correlated with primary caregivers’ HRQoL. Patients’ review with compliance to treatment (61.5%), and health system support (.420, P=0.000), were significantly associated with primary caregivers’ HRQoL. The adjusted R squared revealed that jointly, caregiver characteristics, patient characteristics and health system support accounted for 20.1% of changes in the physical health, 10.3% in the mental health, 24% in the social relationships and 36.9% in environment health of primary caregivers these being the predictors of HRQoL. Specialized psychiatric, mental health professionals and policy designers to realize these characteristics which impact the caregivers ’HRQoL so as to intervene by providing psycho-education on patient care, encourage social support groups, improve environment and health support system of the primary caregivers hence improving t