Quality of life among family caregivers of cancer patients: an investigation of SF-36 domains

Abstract

Background With improving survival rates, cancer has become more of a chronic disease with long-term palliative care requirements. Thus, it is even more than ever necessary to pay careful attention to the well-being of family caregivers of cancer patients, as cancer trajectory is a challenging path for both patients and their caregivers. This study focusses on ascertaining the level of quality of life (QoL) domains and their attributable significant factors among a population of cancer family caregivers. Methods This was a cross-sectional study. The study population consist of caregivers of adult cancer patients in Zanjan, Iran between 2019 and 2020. Medical Outcomes General Health Survey Short Form 36 (SF-36) was the instrument to measure outcome variables. Clinical and basic characteristics of the caregivers and their patients were also collected using a questionnaire designed for this purpose. Data were analyzed using Independent samples t-test, Analysis of Variance, and stepwise linear regression in SPSS v.26. Results Of the caregivers 167 were male and 133 were female. The mean age of the participants was 40.77 ± 12.56, most of whom were offspring of the patients (148, 49.3%), married (239, 79.7%), and self-employed (81, 27.0%). both domains of bodily pain (76.50 ± 16.67) and physical functioning (74.88 ± 20.27) showed the highest scores among caregivers. Age and gender of caregivers, duration of caregiving, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status scale as well as type and stage of cancer, and type of treatment were among the significant predictors of QoL domains (All, p < 0.001). Conclusion Findings of the present study substantiated various significant predictors for QoL along with low levels of QoL domains among the caregivers of cancer patients. Securing such findings proves the magnitude of probable unmet needs and psychological challenges in this population and provides the health policy makers with some valuable clues to draw effective strategies to address such issues.

Health-related quality of life and associated factors among family caregivers of patients with cancer in oncologic centers of Northwest Ethiopia

“…A multitude of factors affected the QOL of family caregivers of adult cancer patients. These may include sociodemographic factors such as age, gender, place of residence, marital status, religion, educational level, occupation, monthly income, family size, types of relation to a patient and caregiving duration [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] and clinical social support related variables of caregivers and patients such as presence of chronic illness, depression, anxiety, level of social support, type of cancer, hospital admission of the patients, type of treatment and performance status [17][18][19][20][21][22][23].…”