Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry

Objectives : This study aimed to identify the relationship between quality of life (QoL) and psychosocial factors of schizophrenia patients registered in a community mental health center.

Methods : The ninety patients with schizophrenia, diagnosed by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition-Text Revision, registered in a community mental health center were studied cross-sectionally. Four trained personnels interviewed each subject individually for the assessment of QoL, psychopathology, severity of depressed mood, insight of illness, attitude toward drugs, social function, degree of social supports and conflicts.

Results : QoL was significantly related to the psychopathology, depressed mood, social conflict, social support; and other aspects of QoL were slightly differently related to depressed mood, social conflict, social support and attitude toward drug by scales. In multiple regression analysis, depressed mood (20.0%) and social conflict (10.3%) were contributed to QoL assessed by Korean version of 4th revision of Schizophrenia Quality of Life. Social support (21.4%), social conflict (20.9%) and depressed mood (3.1%) were contributed to QoL assessed by Korean modification of the Scale to measure Subjective Well-being under Neuroleptic treatment.

Conclusions : These findings demonstrated that QoL of schizophrenia patients in a community is affected by depressed mood, social support and conflict rather than psychotic symptoms, insight and attitude toward drugs. And this result suggests the necessity of approaching not only to the psychotic symptoms but also to the psychosocial characteristics in caring schizophrenia patients in the community.

Keywords Schizophrenia;Quality of life;Psychosocial factors;Community.