The Affiliate Self-stigma Of Relatives Of Schizophrenia:Perception,Influence And Resilience Coping

As a common disease in psychiatry,schizophrenia has been listed as a prominent crippling disease in the world.At present,about 90% of schizophrenic patients live in their own families and have been taken care of by their own relatives in China.As the main caregiver of schizophrenics,relatives of psychiatric patients are vulnerable groups that need urgent attention because they shoulder the heavy care burden of caring for the patients and suffer from the cognitive and emotional pressure due to living with the patients.Compared with the burden of caregivers when looking after the patients,stigma has more adverse effects on the relatives of people with schizophrenia.Stigma may be harmful to the normal social interaction between the family members and the outside world,and may be adverse to the development of their social adaptability.In order to better understand the source and current situation of relatives’ stigma perception,the impact of stigma and their own potential coping approaches,this study tries to explore deeply the affiliate stigma of relatives of schizophrenics through three sub-studies.Study 1 used the free-response method to investigate the stigma perception of schizophrenia and their families from the public(n = 82)and the relatives of schizophrenics(n = 96)and used word frequency analysis and content analysis methods to conduct the heterogeneity test.The results showed that although the public held a sense of sympathy for the patients and their family members,they still had negative perceptions and stigmatization of the groups.Compared with the public,psychiatric patients’ relatives had less stigmatized names to schizophrenics and more understanding and empathy for their family members,but they still held a stigmatizing view of themselves.The result reflected the prevalence and seriousness of public stigma and self-stigma of relatives of psychiatric patients.Study 2 used self-reported questionnaires,experimental and eye-tracking methods to measure the daily emotional experience and emotional attention bias of the public and the relatives of schizophreniacs,in order to clarify the influence of stigma on the individual’s emotional functioning.The results suggested that there were significant differences in the emotional functioning of individuals with affiliate stigma.In terms of emotional experience(n = 287,including 54 highstigma relatives,61 low-stigma relatives,and 64 controls),the positive affect and emotional balance of individuals with high affiliate stigma are lower than those of the normal group or the low-stigma group.In terms of emotional attention bias,individuals had no significant emotional attention differences in the dot-probe task(n = 32,including 17 relatives and 15 controls).But according to the eye-movement indicators(n = 21,including 10 relatives and 11 controls),compared with the normal group,the relatives with higher affiliate stigma had stronger initial attentional maintenance and total attentional maintenance for emotional faces.And the relatives of psychiatric patients had obvious attention bias for positive faces.Study 3 used self-reported questionnaires to measure the affiliate stigma,care burden,resilience,positive/negative affect,and life satisfaction of 85 relatives of schizophrenics.Through hierarchical regression analysis,it was found that the level of affiliate stigma can significantly predict their emotional experiences and life satisfaction,with resilience buffering or moderating the above relationship.The result revealed the adverse effects of affiliate stigma as a risk factor,and the potential protective effect of resilience as an asset on the good development of individuals’ emotional functioning and life satisfaction.In summary,this study explored the stigma perception,the relationship between stigma and emotional functioning,and the individuals’ resilient coping of the relatives of patients with schizophrenia through three sub-studies,and results showed that:(1)Compared with the public,the relatives of patients with schizophrenia had less stigma and more understanding,but self-stigma still existed;(2)There were significant differences in the emotional attention bias and emotional experience characteristics of relatives with different levels of self-stigma;(3)The affliatie selfstigma of relatives of patients with schizophrenia can negatively predict their own emotional experiences and life satisfaction,but resilience can buffer the negative impact of stigma.