Empathy in Married Women Caregivers: A Comparative Analysis Across Psychiatric, Medical, And Non-Caregiver Groups

Caregiving is a challenging role that impacts the emotional well-being of women, however it remains the most neglected area in clinical and social research. The present study aims to examine and compare the empathy among three various groups of married women: psychiatric patient caregivers, medical patient caregivers and non-caregiving women.

Methodology: Purposive sampling was used to assess 389 married women (mean age 40.5). The sample comprises psychiatric caregivers (n = 122), medical caregivers (n = 137), and non-caregiving women (n = 130). To collect desired response for empathy Toronto empathy questionnaire developed by Spreng et al. (2009) was used. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA.

Results: One-way ANOVA represents high significant results, which denotes significant differences in empathy scores across three groups. Descriptive statistics reveal that non-caregiver women’s empathy level was highest, followed by medical caregivers and psychiatric caregivers respectively.

Implication: The findings emphasized that women who were actively involved in caregiving, especially for psychiatric patients, demonstrated low empathy among all the groups. This can be due to the absence of adequate amount of societal and institutional support systems for female caregivers. Psychiatric patient caregivers in particular face severe stigma, isolation and high levels of exhaustion and burden with no societal support. While medical caregivers experience only partial support structure.

These results highlight the urgent need for the intervention such as social support programs for caregivers and policy level initiatives that acknowledges the unseen burden carried by women caregivers in Indian society.

Empathy, Caregiver Burden, Married Women Caregivers, Psychiatric Caregiving

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