Level of depression and quality of life among caregivers of cancer patients : Hospital based study

Abstract

 

  Introduction:  Cancer is a growing problem globally. More humans have been dying yearly for some years from cancer than from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Cancer effects the caregivers of patients who could be their partners, family members and close friends. As the cancer diagnosis is a big challenge and vagueness of the disease, the caregivers’ well fare is at risk and a noteworthy number of them have shown more depression and anxiety.

Objective: To determine the level of depression and quality of life among caregivers of patients with cancer.

Study design: Descriptive Cross sectional study

Place and duration of study: NORI hospital Islamabad from April 2020 to October 2020

Subjects and methods: A total of 150 study participants were selected by simple random sampling Questionnaire consists of Sociodemographic profile of caregivers including age, gender, marital status, occupation, relationship to patient, education, duration of caregiving, stage of the cancer of the patient and type of cancer. To measure participants’ quality of life ‘caregiver quality of life-cancer index’ will be used.

The CQOLC is a self-administered scale specifically designed to evaluate cancer patient caregiver quality of life. To measure participants’ depression ‘The Beck depression inventory scale’ will be used.

Results: In this study, 44% of caregivers were under 50years, 70% were female, 88% were married, 44.7% were housewife and 56% were secondary school graduates. 85 caregivers had been caring to the patient for over a year. 37.3% were the parents of the caregivers. 49.3% were the patients of cancers of reproductive system and 81 had stage 3 cancer.  Mean score of CQOLC (caregiver quality of life index cancer) is 80.625± 3.422, median 80 and range 72-87.  73 (48.7%) showed poor quality of life. Mean score of BDI (beck depression inventory) for depression is 24.4733± 4.877, median (range) 24(19-39). 132 (88%) showed moderate to severe depression. This study had showed significant association of depression with age, gender, relation with the patient, type of cancer and stage of cancer (P<O.05). Similarly, quality of life has showed association with age, gender, relationship with the patient and duration of caregiving (P<0.05).

Conclusion: The results showed that caregivers’ quality of life are affected, and they had mild to moderate depression.

 Key words: cancer, caregiver, depression, quality of life.