| Abstract [eng] |
Socioeconomic status is one of the predictors of health and its relevance in psychiatry has been studied for a long time. Socioeconomic factors are known to be important for the prevalence of mental health disorders, quality of life and treatment outcomes. The aim of this paper is to assess the socioeconomic status, quality of life and their association of patients with schizophrenia treated at the Department for Acute Disorders of the Vilnius City Mental Health Centre. Socioeconomic status consists of three main components: education, employment, and income. According to the literature, people with schizophrenia are more likely to be unemployed, less likely to have completed higher education and have lower incomes. Lower socio-economic status has also been identified as a risk factor for schizophrenia. The literature shows that schizophrenia has an impact on quality of life, with patients rating their quality of life lower than healthy controls. In this study, the socioeconomic status and quality of life of people with schizophrenia were assessed using an anonymous questionnaire, consisting of WHO Quality of Life Questionnaire Short Form (WHOQOL-BREF). The results show that 53.33% of the patients had completed secondary education, while only 26.67% had completed higher education. 53.33% are unemployed and the vast majority have a monthly income of 201-600 EUR The WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire showed a mean score of 59.05 ± 20.27 for physical health, 53.19 ± 25.68 for mental health, 50.14 ± 24.48 for social relationships and 58.38 ± 18.47 for environment. Younger age, being diagnosed with a disease at a younger age, lower education, unemployment, and lower income were found to be associated with lower WHOQOL-BREF scores (p<0.05). Comparison of Lithuanian statistics and our results shows that patients with schizophrenia treated in the Department for Acute Disorders are more likely to be unemployed, have significantly lower incomes, and a lower proportion of them have completed higher education. Patients surveyed tend to rate their quality of life as poor, a trend also observed in the international literature. |
