Community Stigma and Stress on Caregiver Adaptability in Caring for Clients with Schizophrenia in Aceh, Indonesia: A Cross-Sectional Study in Indonesia

Background: The adaptability of caregivers is a process of adjusting to environmental conditions. This is influenced by the caregiver's way of dealing with various problems that are felt, and changes in situations can affect the psychological caregiver such as stress and community stigma (Afriansyah, 2019) [1]. This study was to determine the effect of stress and social stigma on the adaptability of caregivers in caring for clients with schizophrenia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 180 caregivers. Data were collected from 12 August to 08 September 2022 at the Puskesmas, Aceh, Indonesia. The caregiver demographic data includes age, gender, marital status, education, occupation, relationship with clients, and income.

Results: Most caregivers are women (97.8%), aged between 46 to 55 years (71.7%), marital status is widow (66.1%), caregiver relationship with the patient is the mother (69.4%), educated basic income (72.2%) and below the provincial minimum wage (83.3%). The bivariate test showed that there was a relationship between social stigma and the adaptability of caregivers in caring for clients with schizophrenia (p = 0.000) and stress (p = 0.000).

Conclusion: It was concluded that social stigma and stress can affect the adaptability of caregivers in caring for clients with schizophrenia.