Abstract:
The purposes of this study was to describe alcohol induced psychotic disorder caregivers' coping experiences. Theoretical sampling was used to obtain data from 10 caregivers of the patients from Saraburi Hospital, Saraburi. Data collected Methodological triangulation and data traingulation were used to collect data. Content analysis was employed to analyze data.Two main resons for taking and continuing their roles as caregivers were due to their roles as a mother and as a wife. Two major problems or obstacles identified by caregivers were: (1) lackof timee, skills and knowledge in giving care for the patients (2) problems related to patients' behavior such as aggressive, alcohol consumption, non-compliance with medication and non-medical regimen. The impacts resulted from caring for the patients were classified into 4 categories: (1) Physical impact, the caregivers informed about their physical distress or deterioration in relation to giving care to patients. (2) Psychological impact, some psychological distress resulted from taking care of the patients were fear, angry, frustrate, hopeless, and boredom. (3) Financial impact, the lack or decreasel of income and increase of expense and (4) family impact, taking their roles as caregivers made them unable to fully function their other roles such as mother or father, problems related to relationships among family members, lack of happiness, ineffective family communication, and family violence. There were 9 styles of coping: (1) acceptance with situation, (2) trying to control their own distress emotions, (3) management of patients' behavior, (4) temporary escaped from the distress situation when they felt overwhelmed, (5) ventilating the problems with someone they closed to, (6) taking sedative medications to help them sleep, (7) doing some activities to relax their mind and body such as meditation, (8) seeking support from their relatives, and from hospital services (9) trying to make their mind peaceful by religion such as going to temple or listening to Buddhist teaching. There are 3 aspects of need among caregivers: (1) The need of support from health professional such as home visit for patients after discharing from hospital, (2) The need of support from their families or relatives regarding financial support or taking care of patients, and (3) The need of patient support to get job.Results of this serves as essential information base to guide nursing intervention that will strenghten caregivers' potentiality in giving care to the patients as well as to themselves. These will in turn help to promote quality of life either for caregivers themselves or the patients with alcohol induced psychotic disorder.