The Caring-related Problems Experienced by Family Caregivers of Patients With Breast Cancer: A Descriptive Study

Introduction: The diagnosis of cancer involves the patients, their caregivers, and families. Caregivers should obtain guidance from health care professionals to promote care facilities. The current study aimed at investigating the economic, socio-individual, informational, and psycho-spiritual problems of caregivers in post-treatment phase of breast cancer. Methods: The present descriptive study was conducted on 251 subjects using a ques- tionnaire consisted of demographic part and the caregivers’ difficulties. Answers were estimated based on a Likert scale. Data were analyzed using SPSS software. Results:  Totally, 42% and 37% of participants were spouses and close relatives, re- spectively; 97%, 89%, and 74% of caregivers had psychological, economic, and spiri- tual problems, respectively. All of the caregivers had individual, emotional, physical, economic, and informational problems with care giving (P<0.0001). Significant rela- tionships were observed between the employee group and individual, emotional, infor- mational, and economic problems (P<0.0001). There were significant negative relation- ships between either of the occupational, educational, relationship, caregiving duration, and marital status with spiritual problems (P<0.0001). Significant correlation was ob- served between the duration of caring and the socio-individual, physical, informational and economic problems (P<0.0001). Conclusions: Although the current study reported insignificant relationships between the socio-individual, informational, and psycho-spiritual problems of caregivers and some demographic variables, related positive trends were observed. Future studies with powerful strategies are needed to alleviate the observed concerns.

Keywords:

Caregivers , Spouses , Breast Neoplasms , Iran