Conceptual Approaches to Studying Family Caregiving for Persons With Severe Mental Illness

Abstract

This article critically analyzes the conceptual frameworks commonly used to study family caregivers who have a family member with a severe mental illness. Those frameworks that are commonly in use present significant limitations to the study of the family as a whole. In contrast, the Family Resiliency Model permits family level analysis. The authors present this model and argue for its use in studying families with members who have a severe mental illness.

Schizophrenia in Malaysian families: A study on factors associated with quality of life of primary family caregivers

“…Furthermore, caregiver also need to cope with the unexpected symptoms of schizophrenia like delusions, hallucinations, cognitive defects, mood changes and also the social stigma related with the disease (14,18). Stigma was not only been targeted on patients of schizophrenia, but was also referred upon persons close to the patients such as relatives, close friends and caregiver including mental health professionals (37).…”

“…(10) The level of QOL in caregivers of the mentally ills has been found to be associated with various factors including illness factors in patients and psychosocial background of the caregivers. Severity of symptoms, illness duration, level of disabilities, perceived stigma (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18), being female caregivers with nuclear family (19), being older with lower socioeconomic status (12) and recent life crisis (20) were found to be associated with lower QOL.…”

Resilience in Family Members of Persons with Serious Mental Illness

“…A sense of mastery has been identified as a resource that may facilitate family adaptation to mental illness. 51 In family caregivers, greater mastery has been associated with lower caregiver burden and psychological distress and a greater sense of competence in the caregiving role. 25,52 Five studies of family members of persons with mental illness have examined mastery, which may be viewed as an indicator of resilience.…”

La place de la résilience familiale lors d’un suicide à l’adolescence

“…Depuis une trentaine d'années, le concept de résilience est de plus en plus présent dans les écrits en sciences sociales de même qu'au sein de la discipline infirmière (Mu, 2005 ;Callahan, 2003 ;Leske, 2003 ;Chen et Rankin, 2002 ;White et al, 2002 ;Board et Ryan-Wenger, 2000 ;Rungreangkulkij et Gillis, 2000 ;Robinson, 1997). Ce concept gagne en popularité actuellement compte tenu, entre autres, du changement paradigmatique dans les sciences sociales.…”