A study to assess the burden of care and coping strategies among caregivers of mentally ill patients in selected hospital, Dehradun, Uttarakhand

A caregiver burden refers to the activities caregiver performed which may influence their own physical, psychological and social health and coping strategies refers to the actions and activities which help caregiver to provide relief from the burden they may experience while caring for their patient. The aim is to assess the burden of care and coping strategies among caregivers of mentally ill patient in selected hospital. A quantitative descriptive cross- sectional research design was used on total 120 caregivers and they were selected using purposive sampling technique. Data collected from caregiver attending Psychiatric OPD and IPD of State Mental Health Institute, Selaqui, Dehradun, Uttarakhand. The result revealed that majority (70.84%) of caregivers experience a mild to moderate burden and caregivers who adopted good coping strategies were (12.5%) and (75.83%) adopted moderate coping strategies. There were very weak positive co-relation (r = 0.03) between care burden and coping techniques. There were only association between demographic characteristics and care burden level (educational status, i.e. 0.030 and gender, i.e. 0.004) and association between level of coping strategies and the demographic characteristics (Age, i.e. 0.008). The study concluded caregivers of mentally ill patients experience less stress when they employ effective coping strategies.