Orygen, 35 Poplar Road, Melbourne, Victoria, 3052, Australia.
Centre for Youth Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
BMC Psychiatry. 2022 Jun 23;22(1):422. doi: 10.1186/s12888-022-04069-w.
Informal primary caregivers provide crucial supports to loved ones experiencing serious mental illnesses with profound outcomes for the caregivers themselves. A comprehensive understanding of how different serious mental illnesses change the caregiving experience may provide important insight into the ways in which caregivers can be better supported in their role. The aim of this review was to synthesize the comparative literature examining caregiver burden and psychological functioning (anxiety, depression, distress, and psychological wellbeing) between caregivers of people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and bipolar disorder.
Studies were included if they compared caregivers across both diagnostic groups and used measures assessing either caregiver burden or psychological functioning of caregivers. Databases searched up until 11th of January 2022 included: Medline COMPLETE, Embase, PsycINFO and CINAHL. Reference list scans and grey literature searches across government, organisational and dissertation databases were also conducted.
Twenty-eight studies comprising 6166 caregivers were included. Fourteen studies suggested that caregiving burden was comparable across both groups. The effects of caring on caregiver mental health and stress were comparable across both groups. However, methodological limitations were noted, including a reliance on cross-sectional studies, multiple and sometimes competing definitions of caregiving burden, variable sample sizes, and variation in measures used.
The experience of providing care is multidimensional and complex. Symptoms and functional difficulties experienced by people being cared for may affect caregivers more so than diagnosis. Caregivers play a vital role in helping people with serious mental illness. Supporting caregivers by reducing their burden and improving their psychological functioning may help them to continue to provide support, and cope with, the challenges of providing care.
非专业的初级照顾者为患有严重精神疾病的亲人提供了至关重要的支持，这对照顾者自身也产生了深远的影响。全面了解不同的严重精神疾病如何改变照顾者的体验，可能为了解如何更好地支持照顾者发挥作用提供重要的见解。本综述的目的是综合比较研究精神分裂症谱系障碍和双相情感障碍照顾者的照顾者负担和心理功能（焦虑、抑郁、痛苦和心理幸福感）。
如果研究比较了两个诊断组的照顾者，并使用评估照顾者负担或照顾者心理功能的测量工具，则纳入研究。截至 2022 年 1 月 11 日，检索的数据库包括：Medline COMPLETE、Embase、PsycINFO 和 CINAHL。还对政府、组织和论文数据库进行了参考文献扫描和灰色文献搜索。
纳入了 28 项研究，共包括 6166 名照顾者。有 14 项研究表明，两组照顾者的负担相当。照顾对照顾者心理健康和压力的影响在两组中是相当的。然而，也注意到了方法学上的局限性，包括依赖横断面研究、照顾负担的多重且有时相互竞争的定义、可变的样本量以及使用的测量工具的差异。
提供照顾的体验是多维度和复杂的。被照顾者的症状和功能困难可能比诊断更能影响照顾者。照顾者在帮助严重精神疾病患者方面发挥着至关重要的作用。通过减轻照顾者的负担和改善他们的心理功能来支持照顾者，可能有助于他们继续提供支持，并应对提供照顾的挑战。
