Quality of life and related factors among cancer caregivers in China

Abstract

Aims: The present study was designed to investigate quality of life (QOL) among caregivers of cancer inpatients, and to explore the related factors with the long-term goal to improve QOL of cancer caregivers in China. Methods:A cross-sectional study was performed during the period January-March 2008. Subjects comprised 358 caregivers of cancer inpatients. The questionnaires pertaining to QOL, sociodemographic characteristics, caregiving demands, available social resources, caregiving situation, and caregiver's health status were used. Data were collected by nurses through interviews. Results:The average QOL score of these subjects was 5.26. General linear model analysis showed that caregiver's QOL was significantly associated with, in standardized estimate sequence, spousal relationship, patient's activities of daily living, and chronic disease (no). Overall spousal relationship to patient had the strongest association with caregiver's QOL.Conclusions: Psychological well-being and social concerns of cancer caregivers were disrupted more seriously than spiritual well-being and physical wellbeing. In addition, spousal relationship, patient's disability, and caregiver's health status could affect the caregiver's QOL.Key words: burden, cancer, caregiver, oncology, quality of life. C ANCER REMAINS ONE of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. According to the World Cancer Report estimated by the World Health Organization, cancer rates have increased at an alarming rate, from 10 million new cases globally in 2000 to 15 million in 2002, 1 and it has been estimated that, in 2020, the world's cancer population will increase to 7.5 billion, which will include 15 million new cancer cases and 12 million cancer deaths.2 However, cancer has an effect not only on patients, but also on family caregivers, because cancer patients need long-term care due to the long duration of the disease and the treatment, such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In a study of family caregivers of cancer patients, 66.8% of caregivers quit work or made major life changes in order to provide care, 68.0% of families lost most of their savings, and 55.0% of families lost their main source of income. Therefore, the health and well-being of cancer caregivers have attracted accelerating interest in recent years, and have been studied well in Western countries. [4][5][6][7] Quality of life (QOL) is a term used widely to indicate an individual's general well-being, and has been applied in the field of caregiving for years. Studies conducted in Western countries have *Correspondence: Lie Wang, PhD, Department of Social Medicine, School of Public Health, China Medical University, No. 92 Beier Road, Heping District, Shenyang, 110001, China. Email: liewang@mail.cmu.edu.cn Received 9 November 2009; revised 14 June 2010; accepted 11 July 2010. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 2010; 64: 505-513 doi:10.1111/j.1440-1819.02131.x 505 © 2010 The Authors Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2010 Japanese Society of Psychiatry ...

A psychometric validation study of the Quality of Life and FAMCARE scales in Turkish cancer family caregivers

“…The Cronbach alpha correlation coefficient for scale and subscales in the culturally adapted FAMCARE scale was high, but in light of the eigen values of this scale, it was decided that a onedimensional scale might be formed from the 20 items with satisfactory reliability, which support the conclusion drawn by other researchers [21,24]. The construct validity of the Quality of Life Scale (Family Version) was confirmed in the study performed by Lu et al [22], but both the order of the factor loading and the content of the subscales were affected in our study. Low factor loading was found for items 5, 6, 23, 30, 31, 32 and 34, suggesting that these seven items are not really measuring the QOL of the caregivers because of the protective and tolerant attitude of the caregivers toward the disease.…”

“…The test-retest reliability was 0.89, and the internal consistency alpha was 0.69 [16]. However, in the study performed by Lu et al, the confirmatory factor analysis and internal consistency of this scale confirmed the construct validity of the questionnaire [22].…”

“…Several instruments have been used to assess the QOL and satisfaction with care of the cancer family caregivers [14,[21][22][23][24][25]. However, cultural adaptation is necessary for translated instruments that are dependent on the cultural characteristics of the caregivers.…”

“…Compared to results in the original study [16], both the order of the factor loading and the content of the subscales were affected ( Table 5). The rotated solution showed four factor loadings, which were labeled as the subscales of psychological well-being (items 7,8,9,10,11,12,17,21,35, 36 and 37), family concerns (items 13,14,15,16,18,19,20,22 and 33), physical wellbeing (items 1, 2, 3 and 4) and social well-being (items 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.76.…”

Health-related quality of life and sense of coherence among partners of women with breast cancer in Israel

“…Other studies, which focused on the QOL of caregivers of cancer patients in different phases of illness, found that the psychological component of their QOL is mainly impacted (Kitrungrote and Cohen, 2006;Kim and Given, 2008;Weitzner et al, 1999;Alptekin et al, 2010;Grunfeld et al, 2004). However, Lu et al (2010) reported that both psychological and social well-being were worse than physical and spiritual well-being. Furthermore, our findings suggest that it is not necessarily the specific characteristics associated with the illness that impact QOL but rather the presence of the illness itself.…”