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Background: Schizophrenia is a complex, heterogeneous disorder, with highly variable treatment outcomes, and relatively little is known about what is important to patients. The aim of the study was to understand treatment outcomes informal carers perceive to be important to people with schizophrenia., Method: Qualitative interview study with 34 individuals and 8 couples who care for a person with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed by a thematic framework based approach., Results: Carers described well-recognised outcomes of importance, alongside more novel outcomes relating to: Safety (of the patient/others); insight (e.g. into non-reality of psychotic phenomena); respite from fear, distress or pain; socially acceptable behaviour; getting out of the house; attainment of life milestones; changes in personality and/or temperament; reduction of vulnerability to stress; and several aspects of physical health., Conclusions: These findings have the potential to inform the development of patient- or carer- focused outcome measures that take into account the full range of domains that carers feel are important for patients.

Objectives: this study aims to explore how patient safety in community dementia services is understood by caregivers, and healthcare professionals., Methods: cross-sectional analysis of guided one-to-one interviews with 10 caregivers, and 10 healthcare professionals., Results: caregivers and healthcare professionals identified a range of issues including medication errors, mis-communication between professionals, unclear service pathways and the effects of stress on caregivers' behaviour. Caregivers and professionals differed in their attitudes to balancing safety with patient autonomy and who is responsible for managing safety., Conclusions: this article helps to define the nature of safety issues in the context of community care for people with dementia. In contrast to hospital medicine, where the ideal treatment world is safe with all risks managed or minimised, in dementia some risks are actively taken in the interests of promoting autonomy. Caregivers' views differ from those of health professionals but both parties see potential for collaborative working to manage risk in this context, balancing the promotion of autonomy with the minimisation of potential harm., (© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com)

Objective: The correlates of parental burden in schizophrenia may differ between ethnic groups, but few studies have examined this in a UK setting. Our aim was to identify the correlates of burden in a UK sample of first-generation North Indian Punjabi Sikh parents and their white British counterparts., Method: Test the association of burden with a series of clinical, social and service use variables and control for potential confounding factors in a model predicting drivers of burden in a combined sample of the above., Results: The strongest correlates of burden were patient symptoms and parental distress. Differences in correlates of burden between the groups emerged when individual components of service use and parental social network were tested. The group comparisons also revealed differences in expressed emotion (EE) and social networks., Conclusion: The similarities in sources of burden between the groups could be explained by a commonality of sociocultural and economic experience, resulting from the successful acculturation and affluence of this British Sikh group. The differences between the groups may be related to enduring cultural factors such as kin support, since larger family groups were associated with low burden in the British Sikh group. The nature of EE in this British Sikh group may explain why it was not associated with burden in this sample.

Background: Caregiver burden in mental illness is believed to differ between ethnic groups, but few studies have examined this in schizophrenia in the UK., Aim: To measure burden in British North Indian Sikh and white British parents with a son or daughter with established schizophrenia managed in outpatient care., Method: A cross-cultural cohort study measuring family factors, patient psychopathology and levels of burden and distress., Results: Overall levels of burden were low with no significant differences between the groups. Burden subscale scores showed Indian parents were more affected by psychotic behaviours than white parents. The groups also differed on several sociodemographic variables., Conclusion: In stabilized community patients, the overall extent of burden experienced by both Indian and white parents is low and comparable. However, Indian parents were more burdened by psychotic behaviours. This may be a result of co-residence as Indian patients are more likely to live with their families. Social and economic factors in the country of residence and levels of acculturation may also influence levels of burden and the illness behaviours found most bothersome by parents.