Assessing Family Burden of Psychotic Illness in Clinical Practice

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis was twofold. One purpose was to create a user-friendly instrument to be used in regular clinical practice to collect information regarding family burden of psychotic illness. The second purpose was to study how family burden could be linked to the patients’ level of functioning, the patients’ cognition and the patients’ own experience of their illness.    Two studies were conducted. In the first study (Paper I) the instrument Burden Inventory for Relatives to persons with Psychotic disturbances (BIRP) was created. This instrument contained ten statements and showed good psychometrical properties for those dimensions that were investigated. The instrument measures three dimensions of experienced family burden: practical burden, emotional burden, and the relatives’ own health. In the second study (Paper II) the second part of this thesis purpose was investigated. Results showed that increased family burden could be tied to the patients’ impaired functioning as well as to the patients’ higher self ratings regarding distress. The cognitive connection to family burden is not totally clear though, and should be further investigated. A theoretical model which explains the experienced family burden of psychotic illness is also presented within this thesis.The conclusions of this thesis are that BIRP is a useful instrument in regular clinical practise for measuring experienced family burden, and that the patients’ level of functioning and the patients’ own experience of their illness were correlated to the family burden experienced.