Helping Us Heal: telephone versus in-person marital communication and support counseling for spouse caregivers of wives with breast cancer

Abstract

Purpose (1) To test the short-term impact of Helping Us Heal ( HUSH ), a telephone-delivered counseling program for spouse caregivers of women with breast cancer. (2) To compare outcomes from HUSH with outcomes from a historical control group which received the same program in-person. Methods Two-group quasi-experimental design using both within- and between-group analyses with 78 study participants, 26 in the within-group and 52 in the between-group analyses. Spouse caregivers were eligible if the wife was diagnosed within 8 months with stage 0–III breast cancer and were English-speaking. After obtaining signed informed consent and baseline data, 5 fully scripted telephone intervention sessions were delivered at 2-week intervals by patient educators. Spouses and diagnosed wives were assessed on standardized measures of adjustment at baseline and immediately after the final intervention session. Results Within-group analyses revealed that spouses and wives in HUSH significantly improved on depressed mood and anxiety; spouses improved on self-efficacy and their skills in supporting their wife. Additionally, wives’ appraisal of spousal support significantly improved. Between-group analyses revealed that outcomes from HUSH were comparable or larger in magnitude to outcomes achieved by the in-person delivered program. Conclusions A manualized telephone-delivered intervention given directly to spouse caregivers can potentially improve adjustment in both spouses and diagnosed wives but study outcomes must be interpreted with caution. Given the small samples in the pilot studies and the absence of randomization, further testing is needed with a more rigorous experimental design with a larger study sample.

Self-efficacy as mediators of the association between dyadic coping and quality of life among spousal caregiver of patients with cervical cancer

“…In this situation, spouses often feel helpless and emotionally overwhelmed—unable to assist themselves or their wives with the diagnosis. 59 ​In addition, in this study, self-efficacy was connected to factors such as level of education, monthly income, occupation, place of residence, and awareness of HPV, and the high financial, psychological, and physical demands of caregiving during the care process may be related with low self-efficacy of spousal caregivers of patients with cervical cancer. Patients recover at a higher rate and have more faith in their ability to recover from disease when their caregivers are more confident.…”