Stress among Care Givers: The Impact of Nursing a Relative with Cancer

AIMS: The aim of the present study is to assess the level and areas of stress among care givers nursing their loved ones suffering from cancer. SETTING AND DESIGN: An assessment of care givers’ stress providing care to cancer patients at Cipla Palliative Care Center was conducted. The study involves data collection using a questionnaire and subsequent analysis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A close-ended questionnaire that had seven sections on different aspects of caregivers’ stress was developed and administered to 137 participants and purpose of conducting the survey was explained to their understanding. Caregivers who were willing to participate were asked to read and/or explained the questions and requested to reply as per the scales given. Data was collected in the questionnaires and was quantitatively analyzed. RESULTS: The study results showed that overall stress level among caregivers is 5.18 ± 0.26 (on a scale of 0-10); of the total, nearly 62% of caregivers were ready to ask for professional help from nurses, medical social workers and counselors to cope up with their stress. CONCLUSION: Stress among caregivers ultimately affects quality of care that is being provided to the patient. This is also because they are unprepared to provide care, have inadequate knowledge about care giving along with financial burden, physical and emotional stress. Thus interventions are needed to help caregivers to strengthen their confidence in giving care and come out with better quality of care.