title: Schizophrenia in Malaysian families: A study on factors associated with quality of life of primary family caregivers.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Schizophrenia is a chronic illness which brings detrimental effects in the caregivers' health. This study was aimed at highlighting the socio-demographic, clinical and psychosocial factors associated with the subjective Quality of Life (QOL) of Malaysian of primary family caregivers of subjects with schizophrenia attending an urban tertiary care outpatient clinic in Malaysia.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional study was performed to study patient, caregiver and illness factors associated with the QOL among 117 individuals involved with caregiving for schizophrenia patients. The study used WHOQOL-BREF to assess caregivers' QOL and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) to assess the severity of patients' symptoms. Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) assessed the stress level due to life events.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean scores of WHOQOL-BREF in physical, psychological, social and environmental domains were 66.62 (14.36), 61.32 (15.52), 62.77 (17.33), 64.02 (14.86) consecutively. From multiple regression analysis, factors found to be significantly associated with higher QOL were higher educational level among caregivers in social and environmental domains; caregivers not having medical problem/s in physical and psychological domains; later onset and longer illness duration of illness in social domains; patients not attending day care program in environmental domain; lower BPRS score in physical and environmental domains. SRRS score of caregivers was also found to have a significant negative correlation with QOL in environmental and psychological domains. Other factors were not significantly associated with QOL.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Caregivers with more social advantages such as higher educational level and physically healthier and dealing with less severe illness had significantly higher QOL in various aspects. Supporting the caregivers in some of these modifiable factors in clinical practice is important to achieve their higher level QOL.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Ruzanna
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: ZamZam
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.|Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Marhani
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Midin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.|Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Lim S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Hooi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.|Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Eng J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.|Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Siti Na
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Ahmad
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.|Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Siti Fa
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Azman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.|Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Muhammad S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Borhanudin
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Rozhan Sm
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Radzi