Iranian Journal of Rehabilitation Research in Nursing

Introduction: Home care threatens caregivers' psychological health, leading to creation of psychological symptoms. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between individual-social characteristics of patients in vegetative state and psychological symptoms in family caregivers.

Methods: In the present cross-sectional study conducted in 2013, 80 caregivers of patients in vegetative states, caused by a motor vehicle accident, referred to Poursina teaching hospital the city of Rasht, Iran participated. In this study, the questionnaire of individual-social characteristics and SCL-90-R psychological symptoms checklist were used. Data analysis was conducted using statistical tests; ANOVA, t-test and Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric tests as well as SPSS version 18.

Results: The results showed that most frequent psychological symptoms in caregivers included of somatoform complaint disorder and anxiety and the least frequent ones were obsessive-compulsive disorders. The results also demonstrated that the mean score of global severity indices (GSI) were connected with patient’s level of consciousness, rhythm of sleep and wakefulness, emotional response and also type of family relationship (P < 0.05).

Conclusions: Regarding the findings of the present study, caregivers of vegetative state patients are faced with a great number of disorders of somatoform complaint and anxiety. Therefore, psychological symptoms of caregivers of these patients should be considered.