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

BACKGROUND: Cancer is a chronic disease and a major health problem. It affects both patients and their family caregivers multidimensionally. The family caregivers may be affected by not only the disease process but also hospital policies, economic difficulties, accessibility and communication of health care service and can be in need of help. This process may affect their quality of life. However, there have not been enough studies on quality of life of family caregivers of patients with cancer in Turkish culture. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the quality of life of family caregivers of patients with cancer in Turkey. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of study was to evaluate the quality of life of family caregivers with cancer patients in Turkey. METHODS: Participants consist of the family caregivers who volunteered to take part in this descriptive study from 11 hospitals (n =378) which has a daily chemotherapy units and located within the boundaries of Ankara, Turkey. ‘Sociodemographic Characteristic Form’ and ‘Quality of Life Scale-Family Version were used as data collection tool. The Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U, tests were used for data analysis. RESULTES: It is found that there are statistically significant difference among the factors of gender, employment status, income level, and whether caregivers reside with their patients. Family caregivers’ quality of life is negatively affected during the caregiving process (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The results indicate that family caregivers’ quality of life are negatively affected to care process. The results of this research are important as they highlight the need to also consider family caregivers’ quality of life when caring for patients, and study highlight possible areas in which support can be provided for family caregivers of cancer patients in Turkey.