Assessment of Quality of Life of Caregivers of Persons living with Cancers: a tertiary health centre-based cross-sectional study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Caregivers of persons living with cancers experience a level of subjective satisfaction from their role of care giving, but many also report a significant burden on their physical and psychological well-being as well as their social and personal relationships. The present study was thus aimed at assessing the quality of life of caregivers of persons living with cancers, and identifying the possible factors affecting their quality of life. METHODS: a cross-sectional study was conducted among 100 consecutive, consenting persons who were caregivers of cancer patients attending the Pain and Palliative Care Clinic and the Oncology Outpatient department in a tertiary care hospital in Hyderabad, India, over a period of 2 months. The WHOQoL-BREF tool was used to assess the quality of life of the respondents under 4 domains: physical, psychological, social, and environmental. The domain scores were compared using Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: Majority of the respondents were males (67%), resided in urban localities (74%), were literate (82%), and were either children (52%) or spouses (39%) of the cancer patients. Assessment of Quality of life through domain scores showed that mean score was highest for social domain (14.19 + 1.75) and lowest for psychological domain (12.19 + 1.85). There were statistically significant differences between domain scores when compared based on gender, residence, education, marital status, relationship with the cancer patients, and modality of treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Psychological health and well-being of the caregivers of cancer patients are very poor. It is thus imperative to support the caregivers of the cancer patients and provide them with regular counseling sessions.