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Estimating Schizophrenia Literacy among Caregivers of Patients with Schizophrenia at the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH): A Cross-Sectional Study

Jerico H. Bajador

Schizophrenia literacy (SL) is defined as the “knowledge and beliefs about schizophrenia which aid their recognition, management or prevention.” Though mental health literacy was vastly studied in foreign countries, globally there is dearth of literature on caregiver schizophrenia literacy. For six months, 202 caregiver-patient pairs in Admission and Crisis Intervention Section (ACIS) wards were enrolled. SL was measured by administering the National Center for Mental Health Schizophrenia Literacy- B Questionnaire (NCMHSL-BQ) through structured interview. Tertile scores were computed to delineate the three SL categories Low, Satisfactory and High. Ethics approval was granted by UPM Research Ethics Board and NCMH Research Ethics Committee. For the demographics, mean age was 43.9(±13.2) years old, nearly 60% are females, almost half (49%) are married and all resides in highly urbanized cities (HUCs). 35% are mothers while 30% are either brother or sister of the patient. 28% and 13% are High School and College graduate, respectively, and the rest had lower educational attainment. On average, the interview took 33 (±4.8) minutes. The mean SL score was 32 (±3.4), with 42 as highest and 19 as the lowest. Among all respondents, 41.6% had low (score of 19 to 31), 28.7% satisfactory (32 to 33), and 29.7% high (34 to 42) SL. Majority have Low SL, which would imply that there might be a need to intensify health education or psychoeducation activities. Future work for this research would include an examination of the relationship of caregiver SL with the frequency of readmission of their patients with schizophrenia.