The quality of life of people with schizophrenia living in community in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

A total of 136 patients participated in the study. Most of them were single and lived with their relatives, had low educational level, were unemployed and had low income. A great number of the interviewed did not have any social contact outside the family and leisure activity, except watching television and/or listening to the radio. Finances and work situation had the lowest satisfaction level. Educational level, presence of positive and depressive symptoms, hospital admissions were negatively associated with qol. For those receiving state benefit, perceived qol increased with age. These predictors explained more than 42% of the total subjective qol score variance.

Quality of life of individuals with schizophrenia living in the community: relationship to socio‐demographic, clinical and psychosocial characteristics

“…Regarding the association of socio‐demographic characteristics and QOL, we found that people who were employed and had a higher monthly household income perceived greater satisfaction with their lives, suggesting that employment plays an important role in the daily life of an individual. These findings were consistent with those of a study undertaken in Hong Kong (Chan & Yu 2004) and Brazil (de Souza & Coutinho 2006). As Chan and Yu (2004) noted, work not only provides financial remuneration but also enhances individuals’ integration into society and promotes the perceptions of their worth.…”

Social capital, pathway to care and duration of untreated psychosis: Findings from a low- and middle-income country context

“…This is consistent with other first-episode samples. [31][32][33][34] Mean household income (R2 560 ($365) per month) was less than half that of the general population (R5 360 ($777) per month), consistent with previous findings.…”

Proxy and patients ratings on quality of life in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in Korea

“…In our study, the mean difference in a few domains turned out to be very small, even if it reached a statistically significant level when analyzed by Cohen's standard, and little evidence of systematic bias in the patient-proxy rating was found. In accordance with our results, past studies on patient-proxy difference in QoL measurement have found that the mean differences between two ratings are small and of questionable clinical meaning, suggesting that the benefit of using proxy responses [28,33].…”

“…(standardized mean differences 0.0-0.3 in schizophrenia group, 0.0-0.5 in bipolar disorder group) This finding is consistent with previous studies reporting the median standardized differences of about 0.1 to 0.3 [28,31,33]. The degree of difference between mean scores that can be allowed before one can conclude that agreement is satisfactory is controversial.…”

“…Therefore, our finding that agreement between patients and proxies is sufficiently good would suggest that substituting patient scores with proxy scores is possible. In line with our findings, previous studies also reported that significant others can provide adequate information on both subjective and objective QoL indicators [9] and the use of a family caregiver as a proxy respondent is considered a reasonable option that can improve external validity [33].…”