Existential distress in family caregivers: scoping review of meaning-making interventions

McAndrew, Natalie S; Gray, Tamryn F; Wallace, Lyndsey; Calkins, Kelly; Guttormson, Jill; Harding, Eric S; Applebaum, Allison J

doi:10.1136/spcare-2023-004448

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This conclusion parallels previous findings, which link familial caregiving to existential distress and helplessness derived from uncertainty in patient outcomes. 6 Additionally, family dynamics serve as a moderating factor in perceived cancer caregiver burden. 7 Bensen et.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…12 Another promising direction involves meaningmaking interventions, which have shown to the combat negative effects of caregiver burdens related to depressive and grief symptoms, namely existential distress. 6 While these interventions are promising, many are still in their early phases of development, and indicating a need for future efforts that focus on efficacy and real-world effectiveness. 13 Through mitigating these negative effects, we may ease the burden of cancer patient caretakers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Cancer caregivers are primarily motivated by love and sense of duty

Gupta,

Hurley,

Mangal

et al. 2024

Health Psychology Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cancer is a debilitating disease for which patients often need caretakers to help them live their lives and complete basic activities. This study aims to characterize the burden of the caretaker. A 14-question survey was sent out to randomly selected United States cancer caretakers to analyze the social, emotional, and physical burden of their caretaking. The results show that a majority of caretakers are direct family to the patient (69.5%). The patients’ cancers are often in early stages with about 54.5% having stage 1 cancer and 22.5% having stage 2 cancer while only 8.5% had stage 3 cancer and 17.8% had stage 4 cancer. When asked about their motivation, caretakers most often do it because of love (58.82%) with family responsibilities/duty being the second highest reason (35.56%). When asked about their biggest burden, many caretakers said that grief was the biggest issue (30.50%) with mental health issues also being troublesome (28%). 75.6% of respondents said that being a cancer caretaker has negatively impacted their mental health from either anxiety (37.29%), depression (33.9%), or other conditions (4.41%). When asked about the negative impacts of being a caregiver, 43.5% stated they faced high financial costs to give care, and 35% stated they met a lack of social support or lost friends. In comparison, 33% stated they had negative physical impacts. The number of participants who face overwhelming or high stress nearly quintupled from baseline, from 13% to 59.5%. This cross-sectional survey of US adults demonstrates that there are clear negative impacts on cancer caregivers on their physical, financial, social, and mental health. These data underscore the importance of taking care of patients’ caregivers.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cancer caregivers are primarily motivated by love and sense of duty

Gupta,

Hurley,

Mangal

et al. 2024

Health Psychology Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Nursing strategies to mitigate separation between hospitalized acute and critical care patients and families: A scoping review

Meiers,

de Goumoëns,

Thirsk

et al. 2024

Intensive and Critical Care Nursing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sustaining Joy in Serious Neurologic Illnesses

Seshadri,

Hauser,

Kluger

2024

Semin Neurol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The goals of medicine tend to be framed around addressing suffering, pathology, and functional deficits. While this is a natural orientation when dealing with serious illness, it is also incomplete and neglects significant opportunities to improve the quality of life of patients, families, and clinicians. The “total enjoyment of life” is a multidimensional framework that can serve as a positive counterbalance to the “total pain of illness.” It allows clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to take a systematic and comprehensive approach to the active promotion of well-being. The five opportunities for enhancing well-being in this framework are meaning, social connections, happiness/contentment, spiritual transcendence, and pleasure. Applying these concepts in clinical settings, patients, families, and clinicians can together find opportunities to increase the total enjoyment of life in the face of incurable and intractable illnesses. For family care partners, these concepts can be applied to improve self-care, enhance relationships, and develop more creative approaches to supporting a loved one living with illness. Clinicians working with these concepts may find their clinical work more satisfying and impactful and can also apply these concepts to their own lives to increase wellness. In clinical research, this framework can be applied to improve intervention effectiveness and relevance of outcome measures. Lastly, these concepts have the potential to impact public health approaches that focus on well-being and flourishing as the goal and metric of a healthy society.

show abstract

Existential distress in family caregivers: scoping review of meaning-making interventions

Cited by 6 publications

References 47 publications

Cancer caregivers are primarily motivated by love and sense of duty

Cancer caregivers are primarily motivated by love and sense of duty

Nursing strategies to mitigate separation between hospitalized acute and critical care patients and families: A scoping review

Sustaining Joy in Serious Neurologic Illnesses

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About