Family’s Caring for Psychiatric Patients Based on Buddhist’s Lifeways

Abstract

          Religious is mentioned as one alternative method frequently used by family. This
survey research aimed to study family’s caring for psychiatric patients based on Buddhist’s
lifeways. Subjects, using purposive sampling, included 270 family members of psychiatric patients receving services at both out - patient and in - patient settings. The instrument consisted of demographic data form and family’s caring based on Buddhist’s lifeways, developed by researcher based on the in-depth interviews with family members who have experiences using Buddhist principle in caring for psychiatric patients. The questionnaire consisted of 4 subscales: Tan, Silp, Meditation, as well as Faith and belief. The instrument
was verified by five experts and tested for reliability, yielded the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient as 0.94. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics as frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation.
          The results showed that family provided care and support the patient to perform religious activities at a moderate level (M = 2.50, SD = 0.53). Considering each subscale,
Silp had the highest mean score (M = 2.83, SD = 0.69), followed by faith and belief (M =
2.49, SD = 0.54), tan (M = 2.39, SD = 0.57), and meditation (M = 2.29, SD = 0.60).
          From the results, psychiatric nurses should provide some religious activities for patients in order to be relevance with patients’ lifeway at home.