Social Support in Patients with Schizophrenia

บทคัดย่อ

ABSTRACT
Objective : An exploratory descriptive study was conducted to explain the social supporters of patients with schizophrenia who living in Muang District, Khon Kaen Province.
Methods : A total of 106 participants were recruited in the study including 18 persons with schizophrenia, 47 family members and 41 community members. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze quantitative data and content analysis was used for qualitative data.
Results : Patients with schizophrenia had 3-8 social supporters per each patient. Mothers were the mainly social supporters, followed by elder sisters/brothers, fathers, and health care providers. Patiens with schizophrenia reported receiving the most emotional support, followed by informational support, tangible support, employment support, positive reinforcements, self esteem support, and monetary support. Support for rehabilitation was the least. Factors
associated with low social supporters including low incomes, advanced age, physical problems, psychiatric symptoms and uncooperativeness of patients with schizophrenia. Reasons of good social supporters were feeling sympathy, a sense of responsibility, and feeling happy to help.
Conclusions : Patients with schizophrenia have small number of social supporters and the most supporters are family members. Although they receive social welfare from the government,
particularly universal health care coverage, they still have low accessibility to other social welfare. Future studies should be explored these issues.