Qualities of Life of Patients with Psychotic Disorders and Their Family Caregivers: Comparison between Hospitalised and Community-Based Treatment in Beijing, China

BACKGROUND: Community healthcare in mainland China is still at an early stage. The qualities of life (QOLs) of patients with psychotic disorders undergoing rehabilitation in hospitals or in the community, as well as those of their caregivers, may differ from each other. OBJECTIVES: The study was performed to evaluate the QOL of patients with psychotic disorders and assess the differences in the QOLs between patients receiving care in diverse settings (hospital vs. the community). METHODS: This study was a descriptive study, in which all cases were collected from two psychiatric hospitals and five communities. Patients (n = 43) and caregivers (n = 40) in the psychiatric hospitals were grouped according to the length of illness and areas of residence and these criteria were also used to group patients (n = 55) and caregivers (n = 59) in the community. All participants were assessed using the WHOQOL-BREF (Chinese version). ANOVA was adopted to compare the QOL scores among the four groups (cases and caregivers in two settings), while confounding factors, such as age and marital status, were adjusted. RESULTS: Among the four groups of participants, namely, hospitalised and community patients and their corresponding caregivers, community samples had a significantly lower QOL score. The QOL score for the social relationships domain of the hospitalised patients’ caregivers was significantly higher than that of the caregivers of community patients (P = 0.019). CONCLUSION: Community patients and their caregivers tend to have lower QOL scores than their hospitalised counterparts. The support of family members is urgently needed to provide better care for patients.