Coping with schizophrenia: what does the spouse need to know?

The increasing dependence on community-based care for individuals with major mental health disorders such as schizophrenia has led to concern about the physical, emotional and social effects on the family, however the nature and extent of these effects, particularly for spouses/partners, are not generally known. This paper presents descriptive findings from a pilot study designed to explore the phenomenon of caregiving from the perspective of partners living with a schizophrenia sufferer. Data were collected via in-depth interviews with 14 participants, 12 of whom were still living with their partner. The interviews were tape recorded and subsequently transcribed for thematic analysis with The Ethnograph software. While a number of significant themes were identified, this paper focuses on partners' understanding of schizophrenia and other information needs. It concludes that psychiatric nurses have a significant role to play in educating family members about the illness and its long term consequences.