Caregivers' Expressed Emotion, Burden and Social Support

The shortage of community care options and facilities often results in psychiatric patients being quickly stabilized in hospitals and discharged to live with their families. This lack of community resources is particularly felt by individuals with low socioeconomic status.The objective of current study is to find out if caretaking factors are related to patient outcomes. Family factors such as perception of burden, expressed emotion and social support were tested to examine the relationship between these factors and patients' symptom expression and social and occupational functioning. Sample consisted of 60 families with a chronically ill family member who had been previously diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. Primary caregivers and patients were interviewed using measures of burden, expressed emotion, and social support. Patients were administered a revised version of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Results show less expressed emotion, increased social support and, to a lesser extent, perceived burden are responsible for patient outcome.