Caregiver burnout: The silent epidemic

If you’re a working professional in India today, chances are you know how to manage client escalations, complex projects, and volatile markets. But nothing prepares you for a different kind of volatility—the kind that comes from supporting a loved one through a clinical mental illness.

Across India, family members provide nearly 80% of mental health caregiving. With only around 10,000 psychiatrists and <3,000 clinical psychologists serving a population of 1.4 billion, the system relies heavily on families—especially the financially stable, digitally literate, urban workforce.

But this invisible responsibility carries measurable consequences. Research shows that caregivers of severe mental illnesses experience:

• Higher absenteeism and reduced workplace performance

• Financial strain, with up to 20–30% income impact from medical expenses and time off

• Significant emotional distress, often matching or exceeding clinical anxiety thresholds

• Increased risk of burnout, particularly among mid-career professionals managing both home and work

The irony? Most of these caregivers never identify themselves as such. They just say:
“My sister is struggling, so I’m helping out.”
Or,
“My father has episodes sometimes; we manage as a family.”

And because it remains invisible, organisations rarely account for this load. Employee wellness programs focus on individual wellbeing—yoga, therapy reimbursements, resilience workshops. These are valuable, but they don’t address the care coordination, emergency preparedness, symptom monitoring, or emotional labour that caregivers shoulder daily.

This is the gap we’re trying to close with CareCircle: practical, evidence-informed support designed for the people who silently hold their families together while simultaneously holding on to their careers.

Because when we strengthen caregivers, we strengthen families, reduce crisis frequency, and build a more resilient workforce—not just more “mindful” individuals.

https://getcarecircle.com