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Empathy and perceived burden in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders

BACKGROUND: Caregivers of patients load different kinds of burdens, including emotional distress. Aims of this study were to evaluate both burden and empathy of caregivers who assist patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. METHODS: We selected a sample of 60 caregivers (34 women and 26 men),...

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Autores principales: Di Lorenzo, Rosaria, Girone, Anna, Panzera, Nunzio, Fiore, Gianluca, Pinelli, Margherita, Venturi, Giulia, Magarini, Federica, Ferri, Paola
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7980555/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33740963
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06258-x
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author Di Lorenzo, Rosaria
Girone, Anna
Panzera, Nunzio
Fiore, Gianluca
Pinelli, Margherita
Venturi, Giulia
Magarini, Federica
Ferri, Paola
author_facet Di Lorenzo, Rosaria
Girone, Anna
Panzera, Nunzio
Fiore, Gianluca
Pinelli, Margherita
Venturi, Giulia
Magarini, Federica
Ferri, Paola
author_sort Di Lorenzo, Rosaria
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Caregivers of patients load different kinds of burdens, including emotional distress. Aims of this study were to evaluate both burden and empathy of caregivers who assist patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. METHODS: We selected a sample of 60 caregivers (34 women and 26 men), who assisted patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders treated in our local Community Mental Health Center for a 1-year minimum period. We administered two scales to our sample, Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) and Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES), and collected data of caregivers and their assisted patients in a 3-month period. Data were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: We reported a mean ZBI score of 49.68 (±15.03 SD) and a mean BEES score of 14.35 (±9.05 SD), indicating the perception of moderate-severe burden and low level of empathy, respectively. The analysis of internal consistency confirmed the good reliability of both ZBI (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.90) and BEES (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.77). The correlation between the two scales was not statistically significant at Spearman test. At our multiple linear regression, many variables of both caregiver and patient showed a significant correlation with the ZBI score. In particular, not living with the assisted patient and female gender of caregiver potentially decreased the burden, whereas clinical severity of assisted patient and two caregiver conditions, middle school education and spouse relationship with patient, could worsen the burden. We highlighted two positive statistically significant correlations between the total score of BEES and caregiver characteristics: being spouse and not living with assisted patient. CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlights that the caregiver burden of patients with severe psychiatric disorders is high and is associated with low emotional empathy experienced by caregivers, probably due to a defensive psychological mechanism. The conditions of spouse and cohabitation can concomitantly increase both empathy and burden in caregivers.
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spelling pubmed-79805552021-03-22 Empathy and perceived burden in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders Di Lorenzo, Rosaria Girone, Anna Panzera, Nunzio Fiore, Gianluca Pinelli, Margherita Venturi, Giulia Magarini, Federica Ferri, Paola BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Caregivers of patients load different kinds of burdens, including emotional distress. Aims of this study were to evaluate both burden and empathy of caregivers who assist patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. METHODS: We selected a sample of 60 caregivers (34 women and 26 men), who assisted patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders treated in our local Community Mental Health Center for a 1-year minimum period. We administered two scales to our sample, Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) and Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES), and collected data of caregivers and their assisted patients in a 3-month period. Data were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: We reported a mean ZBI score of 49.68 (±15.03 SD) and a mean BEES score of 14.35 (±9.05 SD), indicating the perception of moderate-severe burden and low level of empathy, respectively. The analysis of internal consistency confirmed the good reliability of both ZBI (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.90) and BEES (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.77). The correlation between the two scales was not statistically significant at Spearman test. At our multiple linear regression, many variables of both caregiver and patient showed a significant correlation with the ZBI score. In particular, not living with the assisted patient and female gender of caregiver potentially decreased the burden, whereas clinical severity of assisted patient and two caregiver conditions, middle school education and spouse relationship with patient, could worsen the burden. We highlighted two positive statistically significant correlations between the total score of BEES and caregiver characteristics: being spouse and not living with assisted patient. CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlights that the caregiver burden of patients with severe psychiatric disorders is high and is associated with low emotional empathy experienced by caregivers, probably due to a defensive psychological mechanism. The conditions of spouse and cohabitation can concomitantly increase both empathy and burden in caregivers. BioMed Central 2021-03-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7980555/ /pubmed/33740963 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06258-x Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Di Lorenzo, Rosaria
Girone, Anna
Panzera, Nunzio
Fiore, Gianluca
Pinelli, Margherita
Venturi, Giulia
Magarini, Federica
Ferri, Paola
Empathy and perceived burden in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders
title Empathy and perceived burden in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders
title_full Empathy and perceived burden in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders
title_fullStr Empathy and perceived burden in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders
title_full_unstemmed Empathy and perceived burden in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders
title_short Empathy and perceived burden in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders
title_sort empathy and perceived burden in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7980555/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33740963
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06258-x
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