GAMBARAN TINGKAT PENGETAHUAN TENTANG SKIZOFRENIA PADA KELUARGA PENDERITA SKIZOFRENIA DI RUMAH SAKIT JIWA PROF. HB. SAANIN PADANG

People with mental disorders from year to year tends to increase. Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder who has some residual symptoms even though they had already declared to be back home after receiving treatment in institutions such as mental hospitals and other mental health care center. The family is the main caregiver for the schizophrenia’s patients which act as a substitute nurse when the patients were already in the family environment. To improve the quality of life of patients with schizophrenia in this case is to reduce the recurrence, then required knowledge and understanding of family about schizophrenia and how to treat patients at home. The purposed of this study is to determine the extent of the knowledge-level’s description of families of patients with schizophrenia at Prof. HB. Saanin Padang’s mental hospital. The method used in this research is the method quantitative descriptive with incidental sampling technique. Variable levels of family’s knowledge about schizophrenia used knowledge about schizophrenia’s scale is made by the researcher itself that composed of a 26-items and given to 70 respondents. Result showed that as many as 25.8% of respondents have a high level of knowledge about schizophrenia, 57.1% of respondents have a moderate level of knowledge, and 17, 1% of respondents have a low level of knowledge. This study proved that the importance of knowledge about schizophrenia for family to be able to suppress the recurrence rate