A Cross-Sectional Evaluation of Caregiver Burden in Schizophrenia Care: Findings from Western Saudi Arabia with Policy Implications for Preventive Mental Healthcare.

Background/Objectives: Research about the effects of schizophrenia, along with caregiver burden, exists extensively in Western countries. However, research on Middle Eastern societies, especially Saudi Arabia, is limited. We assessed the burden experienced by caregivers of individuals with schizophrenia and identified the associated factors contributing to it. Methods: The current cross-sectional study was conducted in Jeddah, Western Saudi Arabia, from December 2024 to March 2025. We used a validated Arabic data collection tool comprising 22 items that assessed five domains of caregiver burden. The associations between background characteristics and individual domains were determined by the Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis test. We applied binomial regression analysis to find the factors associated with caregiver burden. Results: Of the 330 participants studied, no burden was observed in 17.9%. The remaining had mild (25.8%), moderate (34.8%), and severe (21.5%) burdens. Among the domains, emotional strain showed the highest mean (11.52 ± 4.32), followed closely by time and social limitations (11.29 ± 5.07) and health and financial impacts (11.08 ± 5.08). The caregiver burden was significantly higher among the adult children caring for their parents (p = 0.034) and lower among the participants working in the government sector (p = 0.022). Conclusions: The findings suggest a policy-relevant support program that includes workplace flexibility and financial help to manage their overall caregiving load and improve their health. Future research should explore the effectiveness of support strategies tailored to caregivers in different sociocultural contexts to enhance both caregiver and patient outcomes.