Cognitive, Work and Social Functioning of Patient with Schizophrenia

Background: Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder characterized by disturbances in thought and verbal behavior, perception, affect, motor behavior and relationship to the external world. The prevalence of schizophrenia worldwide is about 1 percent of the population.Schizophrenia carries great burden to the patient and their families. It has negatively affected key areas of functioning like daily activities, social interaction and lifestyle of the person. Evaluating social functioning also helps in the effective treatments for schizophrenia patients. Because it plays an important role in everyday life and schizophrenia patients with low social functioning showed the poor prognosis.Objectives: The study objectives were to assess the cognitive function, work function, social functioning of patient with Schizophrenia, to find out the association of cognitive, work and social functioning with selected socio demographic and clinical variables and to determine the relationship among cognitive, work and social functioning of patient with Schizophrenia. Materials and methods: Quantitative research approach and descriptive research design was adopted. 30 patients with Schizophrenia attending OPD were selected by using Purposive sampling technique. Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Mini mental status examination, self-structured work functioning tool and social occupational functioning scale were used. Results: Out of 30 subjects it was found that 36.7% (f=11) belongs to age group of 18-25, 53.3% (f=16) were male, 36.7% (f=11) studied up to primary education, 50% (f=15) were married, 80% (f=24) belongs to upper lower socioeconomic class, 40% (f=12) were housewife, 96.7% (f=29) belongs to nuclear family, 100% (f=30) were living with family,96.7% (f=29) were having acute mode of onset, 76.7% (f=23) were improving in the progress of their illness, 100% (f=30) have no precipitating factor, 60% (f=18) have insight regarding illness, 73.3% (f=22) were not having any history of mental illness in their family, 36.7% (f=11) have moderate impairment in cognitive functioning, 43.3% (f=13) have moderate work functioning and 56.7% (f=17) have mild impairment in the social functioning.Significant association was found between cognitive functioning with education and insight regarding illness, social functioning with occupation among the patient with Schizophrenia. Positive correlation was found between cognitive functioning and social functioning. Conclusion: The result showed that there is significant association between education and cognitive functioning, insight regarding illness and cognitive functioning, significant association between occupation and social functioning and positive correlation between cognitive and social functioning.