CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 106Cancer survivorship and careNursing care and researchFamily Caregiving in Mental Illness

Advanced cancer caregiving as a risk for major depressive episodes and generalized anxiety disorder

Open access
Trevino, Kelly M., Prigerson, Holly G., Maciejewski, Paul K.·2018·Psycho-Oncology
DOI 10.1002/pon.4441PMC PMC5746474
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Objective: Caregivers of advanced cancer patients provide extensive care associated with high levels of caregiver distress. The degree to which cancer caregiving increases caregivers' risk for a psychiatric disorder is unknown. The current study examines whether advanced cancer caregiving poses distinct risks for initial and recurrent major depressive episodes (MDEs) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) relative to the general population. Methods: Caregivers of advanced cancer patients (N = 540) from Coping with Cancer were compared to general population controls (N = 9282) from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. The general population comparison sample was propensity‐weighted to be demographically similar to the caregiver sample. Results: Caregivers of advanced cancer patients were more likely than individuals in the general population to have an initial MDE (OR = 7.7; 95% CI, 3.5‐17.0; P < .001), but no more likely than the general population to have a recurrent MDE (OR = 1.1; 95% CI, 0.6‐2.1; P = .662). Caregivers were also more likely than the general population to have GAD (OR = 3.0; 95% CI, 1.9‐4.8; P < .001) and comorbid MDE and GAD (OR = 2.5; 95% CI, 1.1‐5.9; P = .038). Conclusions: The increased risk of meeting diagnostic criteria for current MDE and GAD and comorbid MDE and GAD associated with advanced cancer caregiving highlights the degree of emotional burden among cancer caregivers. Clinical services that assess, prevent, and treat depression and anxiety in cancer caregivers are needed to reduce the burden of caregiving and improve the mental health of this growing population.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1002/pon.4441

Cites

39 of 39 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • A cancer diagnosis is associated with high levels of distress, leading to frequent anxiety, depression, fear of recurrence/progression, sleep disturbance, and fatigue in both patients and caregivers.

    “A cancer diagnosis is associated with high levels of distress, leading to frequent anxiety, depression, fear of recurrence/progression, sleep disturbance, and fatigue in both patients and caregivers [1–8].”

    From Being present: A single-arm feasibility study of audio-based mindfulness meditation for colorectal cancer patients and caregivers (2018) · cites this paper as [8]

    The Background (page not supplied) reports high psychological distress among cancer caregivers, including elevated anxiety and depressive symptoms, and associates caregiver distress with sleep disturbance. It also mentions distress in patients, but does not establish the full symptom list for both groups. The cited passages do not address fear of recurrence or progression or fatigue. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • A metastatic cancer diagnosis is associated with high levels of distress in patients and caregivers.

    “A metastatic cancer diagnosis is associated with high levels of distress in patients and caregivers.”

    From Being present: A single-arm feasibility study of audio-based mindfulness meditation for colorectal cancer patients and caregivers (2018) · cites this paper as [8]

    The Background reports high psychological distress among cancer caregivers, including caregivers of patients with advanced cancer. The Methods define the study’s advanced cancer patients as having distant metastases, but the paper does not establish that patients themselves had high levels of distress following diagnosis; its findings focus on caregivers. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Family caregivers of cancer patients exhibit high levels of stress and depression, lower subjective well-being, worse physical health, and higher mortality compared to non-caregivers.

    “Family caregivers of cancer patients exhibit high levels of stress and depression, lower subjective well-being, worse physical health, and higher mortality compared to non-caregivers [2–8, 19–25], yet few studies focus on improving outcomes for caregivers [26].”

    From Being present: A single-arm feasibility study of audio-based mindfulness meditation for colorectal cancer patients and caregivers (2018) · cites this paper as [8]

    The Background reports high psychological distress among cancer caregivers, and the Results find more current major depressive episodes among caregivers of advanced cancer patients than among demographically similar controls. The copy does not establish lower subjective well-being, worse physical health, or higher mortality compared with non-caregivers; the Discussion describes poor physical health only as a possible risk associated with anxiety. (LLM, conf=0.89)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Informal caregivers of cancer patients spend an estimated 32.9 hours a week on caregiving tasks, of which 72% involves performing complex medical or nursing tasks.

    “It has been estimated that informal caregivers of cancer patients spend an estimated of 32.9 h a week on caregiving tasks, of which 72% involves performing complex medical or nursing tasks [35].”

    From Systematic review of caregiver burden, unmet needs and quality-of-life among informal caregivers of patients with pancreatic cancer (2023) · cites this paper as [35]

    The Background reports that cancer caregivers spend an average of 32.9 hours per week on caregiving tasks. It also says 72% of caregivers perform complex medical or nursing tasks—not that those tasks account for 72% of their caregiving time. (LLM, conf=0.90)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Trevino, K. M., Prigerson, H. G., & Maciejewski, P. K.
Affiliations
Weill Cornell Medicine (US)
Corresponding author
Maciejewski, Paul K.
ORCID
Venue
Psycho-Oncology
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2017-05-16
Volume
27
Issue
1
Pages
243-249
ISSN
  • 1057-9249 (ISSN-L)
  • 1099-1611
DOI
10.1002/pon.4441
PMC
PMC5746474
OpenAlex
W2605789464
Cited by
106
References
39
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 1
FWCI
3.01
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
Locations
  • Psycho-Oncology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (MH63892, MH60220)
  • National Cancer Institute (CA106370, CA197730)
  • National Institute on Aging (K23 AG048632)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer survivorship and care
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Pharmacy › Nursing care and research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Family Caregiving in Mental Illness
Keywords
caregiver burden, major depressive episode, generalized anxiety disorder, comorbid depression and anxiety, caregiver mental health, emotional burden
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Psychological, Adult, Aged, Anxiety Disorders, Major Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Male, Mental Health, Middle Aged, Neoplasms, Recurrence, Risk Factors, United States, Comorbidity, Caregivers

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review