Burden of family caregivers with schizophrenic patients in Korea.

The purpose of the study was to test a staged causal model as the theoretical base to determine the relationships among knowledge, coping, and burden among Korean family caregivers with schizophrenic patients. The staged theoretical model contained three stages comprised of contextual variables (stage 1), interactional variables (stage 2), and perception variables (stage 3). The situational variables were caregiver knowledge, gender and age of family caregiver, duration of family caregiving, and the nature of the relationship between patient and family caregiver. The interactional variable was represented by two styles of copings (positive and negative). The perception variable was the perception of subjective burden. A total of 57 family caregivers with schizophrenic patients participated in this study. The instruments, Knowledge Scale, Coping Scale, and Burden Scale, were used. A path analysis was used in this model. The family caregiver's knowledge had an indirect impact on the burden through negative coping, indicating that the less caregiver's knowledge, the more caregivers use negative coping strategies, which results in caregiving perception of subjective burden. The results support that interactional outcome of coping mediates the relationships between caregiver's knowledge and the impact of subjective outcome of caregiving burden. Copyright 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.