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Factors Related to Quality of Life among Chronic Mental Illness Patients in Kaohsiung City

The purposes of this study were 1) to explore the associations between individual factors, disease factors, family factors, social factors and quality of life ( QoL ), 2) to predict QoL in patients with chronic mental illness ( CMI ), and 3) to understand the needs of caregivers. A cross-sectional and cluster sampling was employed. Structured questionnaires, including a living conditions questionnaire and a psychotic symptom assessment scale, Caregiver Burden Scale, 5-item Brief Symptom Rating Scale ( BSRS-5 ), and the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-12 ( MOS SF-12 ) were used to collect data. Totally, 2023 patients were recruited, males 52.9%, females 47.1%, and a mean age of 44.99¡Ó12.09. Most of these cases were high school educated, unemployed, and had been hospitalized. 12.6% had a history of violence, 8.4% had a history of attempted suicide, 10% had substance abuse, and 5.4% had legal related issues. The most common diagnoses were schizophrenia¡]70.5%¡^and affective disorder¡]19.7%¡^. Single-factor analysis showed those who were unmarried, employed, younger, having less psychological problems, and low levels of psychological distress had better QOL. Besides, sex and education were not related to QOL in personal factors. Current psychotic symptoms and positive symptoms were negatively correlated with QOL. Schizophrenic patients and hospitalized patients reported higher QOL than bipolar patients and community patients in disease factors. Caregiver¡¦s attitude and caregiver¡¦s burden were negatively correlated with QOL in family factors. The unstable housing and community life dysfunction were negatively correlated with QOL in social factors. All significantly correlated variables were entered into hierarchical regression analysis followed the sequence of social factors, family factors, disease factors and individual factors. The results showed all four of these dimensions were significant predictors of MCS and PCS of QoL, explained variance 48.2¢H and 21.2¢H, respectively. Conclusions: Individual factors and disease factors are the most important factors in predicting QoL in CMI patients. Second, family factors are more important than social factors in MCS, and social factors are more important than family factors in PCS. The above evidence indicates a wide range of factors must be considered to improve the QoL in CMI patients.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0810109-171442
Date10 August 2009
CreatorsHuang, Rong-rong
ContributorsYing-Yao Cheng, Wen-Bin Chiou, Pai-Lu Wu, Frank Huang-Chih Chou
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0810109-171442
Rightscampus_withheld, Copyright information available at source archive

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