Research Paper: Psychopathological Symptoms in Caregivers of Patients With Vegetative State

Background: Taking care of patients in a vegetative state is a great challenge and affects the mentalhealth of the caregivers.Objectives: This study aimed to determine the psychopathological symptoms in caregivers ofpatients with Vegetative State (VS) and determine the demographic and social predictors of thecommon symptoms.Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in an educational hospital in thenorth of Iran from 2012 to 2013. The psychopathological symptoms of 80 caregivers of VS patientswere evaluated by Symptom Checklist-Revised (SCL-90-R) questionnaire. Results were analyzedusing SPSS (Version 18) by the Mann-Whitney U test. Finally, the predictors of psychopathologicalsymptoms were determined through a simple regression model.Results: The highest scores of the psychological symptoms were of the depression subscale(2.88±0.86) and somatoform subscale (2.85±0.83). The psychopathological symptoms includingsomatoform (P=0.012), obsessive-compulsive (P=0.032), depression (P=0.035), anxiety (P=0.027),phobia (P=0.015), and paranoid ideations (P=0.027) were significantly higher in women than inmen. However, there was no significant relationship between these symptoms and marital status.The simple regression model showed that none of the sociodemographic variables could predictpsychopathological symptoms in the caregivers.Conclusion: A significant number of caregivers had psychopathological symptoms, especiallydepression and somatoform complaints.