Chronic Hospitalized and Household Maintained Consumers; Characteristics and Differences Among Referees to the Iranian Society Supporting Individuals With Schizophrenia

Providing treatment and educational services for consumers and their caregivers is more effective if those services are implemented based on their characteristics and differences. To partly address this objective, the present study aimed to describe and compare characteristics and differences of chronic hospitalized and household maintained consumers and their caregivers who were regular users of educational and rehabilitation programs of the Iranian Society Supporting Individuals with Schizophrenia (ISSIS) in Tehran, Iran. Two hundred and thirty one consumers were evaluated based on demographics, and clinical and symptom-related characteristics. Their caregivers (n = 231) were independently evaluated based on their knowledge on schizophrenia, family function, burden, and availability of social services and support for them. Data were analyzed by performing independent sample t-test and Mann-Whitney U. The study findings revealed hospitalized consumers were older, had longer length of illness, greater severity of positive and negative symptoms and lower efficacy in basic life skills in comparison with household maintained consumers. The caregivers of the hospitalized consumers had greater objective and subjective burdens and lower knowledge on schizophrenia in comparison with caregivers of household maintained consumers. While household maintained consumers had more access to medical insurance, their caregivers had more access to the supportive organizations, more availability of substitute caregiver and assistant caregiver compared with caregivers of hospitalized consumers. Our findings suggest the need to promote specific interventions and treatment programs for Iranian consumers and their caregivers based on their characteristics and differences due to schizophrenia.