IOSR Journal of Dental and Medical Sciences (IOSR-JDMS) e-ISSN: 2279-0853, p-ISSN: 2279-0861.Volume 18, Issue 2 Ser. 10 (February. 2019), PP 28-32 www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/0853-1802102832 www.iosrjournals.org 28 | Page Association of Caregiver Burden with Insight and Quality Of Life in Persons Suffering From Schizophrenia and Bipolar Affective Disorder. Dr. Naga Pavan Kumar K.S.V.R. 1 , Dr. Prasanna Kumar N. 2 , Dr. Padma V 3 1. Post Graduate, Department of Psychiatry, Andhra Medical College, Visakhapatnam. 2. Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Andhra Medical College, Visakhapatnam. 3. Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Andhra Medical College, Visakhapatnam. Corresponding Author: Dr. Naga Pavan Kumar K.S.V.R Abstract: Introduction: Caregivers play a pivotal role in the maintenance part of the management of psychiatric disorders. Psychiatric illnesses not only effect the patients, but also the lives of their caregivers. Insight is one of the most important aspects of the patients’ illness and plays an important role in drug compliance and thereby the maintenance of the remission.Quality of life of the persons with psychiatric illnesses may affect the caregivers’ suffering. As there are few studies determining the association between t he insight, quality of life on caregiver burden, this study is performed to find the association between the caregiver burden and the insight and quality of life. Aim: To find the correlation between the caregiver burden with insight and quality of life of the patients attending the Government Hospital for Mental Care, Visakhapatnam with the experienced by their attendants. Methods:A sample of 60 patientsdiagnosed with Schizophrenia and BPAD as per ICD 10 criteria were takenand Birchwood Insight Scale for insight, WHO-QOL BREF scale for quality of life and Burden Assessment Scale for the caregiver burden were used.Correlation statistical tests were applied. Results:There was a significant positive correlation between insight and quality of life (r = 0.668), negative correlation between quality of life and the caregiver burden (r = - 0.367) in both the groups whereas there was a correlation between insight and the caregiver burden, it was not statistically significant. Conclusions:Insight and quality of life are lower in schizophrenia as compared to bipolar affective disorder. Caregiver burden is higher in schizophrenia compared to bipolar affective disorder. Insight and quality of life are positively correlated. Quality of life of the patients and the burden of their caregivers are negatively correlated. Key Words: Insight, Quality of life, Caregivers, Burden. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 03-02-2019 Date of acceptance: 18-02-2019 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Introduction Caregivers play a pivotal role in the maintenance part of the management of psychiatric disorders. Psychiatric illnesses not only effect the patients, but also the lives of their caregivers. Caregivers experience high levels of burden while dealing with the patients’ sufferings, meeting their demands of taking care of them. Caregiving could be highly stressful. Studies were done on the families of patients with schizophrenia and found that the families experience significant burden due to the illness. Perlick et al. 1 in their studyinvolving caregivers of bipolar disorder have shown that 93% of caregivers report moderate level of burden and 54% caregivers report severe level of burden. Few studies were done comparing the burden among caregivers of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Different opinions were obtained among the studies. One study 2 showed that caregivers of schizophrenia patients experience more burden than those of bipolar disorder whereas another study revealed that patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder impose a similar level of burden on their caregivers and they use similar types of coping methods to deal with the burden. Insight refers to the conscious awareness and understanding of one’s own psychopathology. It is one of the most important aspects of the patients’ illness and plays an important role in drug compliance and thereby the maintenance of the remission. In studies comparing insight in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, Michalakeas et al. 3 , reported that patient with schizophrenia and mania did not differ on insight Quality of life (QOL) and mental health have a correlation thatQOL is a direct consequence of mental health. QoL is considered to be important in research on treatment outcome for bipolar disorders and