eng Science and Education Publishing American Journal of Nursing Research 2378-5586 2020-10-27 8 6 624 631 10.12691/ajnr-8-6-5 AJNR2020865 article Zebeda Abdelgwad Elsherif saif_ayat@yahoo.com 1 Sahar Behilak 2 Ayat Saif Elyazal Abdelraof 2 Psychiatric Nursing and Mental Health, Tanta University, Egypt Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, Mansoura University, Egypt Background: The chronic burden of care to a patient with schizophrenia which produce negative emotions. As a result of de-institutionalization, caregivers have greater burden for the care of their mentally ill relatives. Objective of this study was to explore the relationship of relatives¡¯ illness perception, expressed emotion and their burden in caring for patients with schizophrenia. Design: This study followed a correlation descriptive research design. Setting: This study conducted at inpatient and outpatient psychiatric department of Tanta University Hospital. Subject: The study subjects consist of 100 relatives of patient with schizophrenia. Tools: Tool 1 consisted of 2 parts: Part 1 Socio-demographic and general characteristics of studied participants, Part 2 Illness Perception Questionnaire-Schizophrenia Carers Version (IPQ-SCV), Tool 2 Family Questionnaire (FQ), Tool 3 Caregiver Burden Interview. Results: it was found that the studied participants had poor illness perception total score, it was found that the studied subjects (47%) had high emotional over- involvement level while it was observed that the two thirds of the studied relatives (61%) had high level of family criticism. majority of studied participants had moderate level of family burden. Conclusion: The results concluded that there was a significant positive correlation between family illness perception and family expressed emotion, also there was a significant positive correlation between family emotional expression and family burden level. Recommendations: this study recommended future studies to investigate distress and burden among caregivers with high emotion expression for intervention, reducing family stress and burden. http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajnr/8/6/5/ajnr-8-6-5.pdf caregivers burden emotional expression illness perception