Self-efficacy and conscientiousness in caregivers of the mentally challenged: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Little research has evaluated the obstacles and challenges that complicate the daily life of mentally challenged individuals and their caregivers. The involvement in the provision of care for the mentally challenged constitutes a lifetime commitment for their family members that form the main core of care, compelling them both to experience most of the health-care inequalities in comparison with the rest of the general population. Self-efficacy and conscientiousness consist two behavioral signatures/personality traits that guarantee the uncompromising enthusiasm and undivided commitment in circumstances that are defined as specifically difficult and demanding, enabling caregivers to adopt in the given conditions. The results of the survey indicate that the involvement in the provision of care for the mentally challenged (N=81) is not random and doesn't depend on the score of the Intelligence Scale, but is in fact the result of a conscious selection, a mental commitment, whose success is ensured by the perception of self-efficacy and conscientiousness, that are statistically significant and at the same time bidirectional. Furthermore, the survey also indicates that caregivers who chose willingly to take care of the mentally challenged, have a statistically significant higher self-efficacy perception