Living with a Mentally Ill Person: A Phenomenological Study of Families Taking Care of Relatives Who Are Being Followed up at University Teaching Hospital (UTH), Lusaka, Zambia

Eva Velikoshi-Indongo¹, Andros Theu¹ & Ravi Paul^2*

¹Cavendish University, School of Medicine, Zambia
²University of Zambia, School of Medicine, Zambia

Dr. Ravi Paul, University of Zambia, School of Medicine, Zambia.

Keywords: Mental Illnesses; Family Caregivers; Depression

Abstract

Background
Mental illnesses have become a global burden. Almost every family is affected by mental illnesses, either directly as individuals, or indirectly in the manner that the family has to live with and care for relatives who are suffering from a mental illness particularly where disability has resulted from such mental illness. In addition to disability, mental disorders tend to be chronic, rendering an individual partially or completely dependent on his/her family. However, caring for a family member with a mental disorder places an enormous burden on family caregivers socially, psychologically and economically. Despite the growing numbers of mental illness that directly resulted in the increase in population of families living with mentally ill patients, there has been no recent studies focusing on the experiences of families caring for persons with mental illnesses in Zambia.
Aim
The aim of the study was to describe the experiences of the families who are caring for persons diagnosed with mental illnesses being followed up at the University Teaching Hospital Psychiatric Clinic and develop health interventions to support these families.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).