Family Caregivers’ Involvement in Caring with Cancer and their Quality of Life

13 studies indicated the need of developing coping strategies to improve management and control of both the situation and emotional strain, and to help increase training in caregivers, thus improving self-efficacy while reducing emotional impact.

“Thirteen studies [23,24,27,30,32,35,37,38,45,46,47,49,54] indicated the need of developing coping strategies to improve the management and control of both the situation and the emotional strain, and also to help increase training in caregivers, thus improving their self-efficacy while reducing the emotional impact.”

Four studies highlighted the need of training health professionals on existential and spiritual distress management, as well as the need to identify groups at risk and reassigning tasks among all family members.

“Four studies [22,24,44,48] highlighted the need of training properly health professionals on existential and spiritual distress management, as well as the need to identify groups at risk and reassigning tasks among all family members.”

Ten studies did not describe average age.

“However, it must be highlighted that 10 studies did not describe average age [22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31].”

10 studies described how the patients' disease process has affected the social interaction of caregivers, who manifest great difficulty in reconciling their role as caregivers and the development of other daily activities, highlighting deterioration of working conditions.

“With regard to social aspects, 10 studies [24,25,27,31,32,41,49,53,54,55] described how the patients’ disease process has affected the social interaction of caregivers, who manifest a great difficulty in reconciling their role as caregivers and the development of other daily activities, highlighting the deterioration of working conditions.”

Care provision by caregivers of adults with cancer causes social problems, including difficulty reconciling caregiving with other activities, deterioration of working conditions, and less social event engagement.

“Regarding social problems, review studies [24,25,27,31,32,41,49,53,54,55] described how social interactions of caregivers were affected to the point of finding it very difficult to reconcile their role of caregivers with the rest of activities, where deterioration of working conditions and lesser social event engagement were highlighted.”

Most studies in the review found more women than men among caregivers of patients with cancer.

“most studies coincide in stating that there are more women caregivers of patients with cancer than men [22,23,24,25,26,27,29,30,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57].”