The Effect of a Psychoeducation Intervention on Burden Among Caregivers of Persons with Schizophrenia in Medan

Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness that requires long treatment. Caring for schizophrenia in a long period caused a burden for caregivers who took care of a patients at home. Psychoeducational intervention may improve caregivers' outcomes. It was designed to help caregivers reduce their burden of care. This study was a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the effect of a psychoeducation intervention on burden among caregivers of persons with schizophrenia at home. One hundred caregivers of schizophrenia persons were recruited and divided into the experimental and control groups. Of these, 50 participants in the experimental group received the psychoeducation intervention and the standard care was measured by the Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale. The caregiver intervention was held once a week for 5 weeks. Burden was measured before and after the intervention. An Independent t-test was conducted to determine the differences between group effect of the intervention and Paired t-test was used to examine the within group effect of the intervention. This study revealed that the mean score of the caregivers' burden in the experimental group was significantly lower than those in the control group after they received the intervention (t = 11.20, p<0.01). The psychoeducation intervention in this study indicated positive effects on decreasing the caregivers' burden of persons with schizophrenia. Future study should aim to provide a more accurate idea of the contribution of the different domains of caregiver intervention programs of this kind to reducing burden. It should also to investigate the ways of reducing burden of care.