[ relationship between caregiver burden with coping strategies in Family caregivers of cancer patients]

ABSTRACT

Cancer is one of the most common chronic diseases whose caregivers are confronted with related problems to caring and treating the cancer patients. Caregiver burden, which is resulted from the negative impact of living with the cancer patient along with inappropriate use of coping strategies, which could lead to rejection diagnosis, can be accounted as the reasons of why the treatment and health would be impaired. The present study was aimed to determine the relationship between caregiver burden and coping strategies of caregivers of cancer patients. In this cross-sectional study, 133 caregivers of cancer patients who referred to Gorgon's 5[th] Azar Educative and Therapeutic Center were selected via Census sampling method. Data were gathered by three-part questionnaire, including demographics checklist, caregiver burden and coping strategies questionnaire. In order to analyze the collected data, SPSS V. 16 software with descriptive statistics was applied; also, the analysis of variance and logistic regression were conducted. In addition, statistical significance was defined as p< 0.05. Findings showed that mean and standard deviation of caregivers' age was 35.73 +/- 14.31. And, 50.4% of all the participants were male. Based on the results taken from multivariate model of logistic regression, high care demand [OR=0.403,%95 CI 0.227 - 0.714] and higher rate of emotional coping strategies use [OR=1.09,%95CI 1.04 - 1.15] have significant correlation with caregiver burden. Based on our findings, the using of emotion-focused coping strategies among caregivers and caring needs of patient, lead to increase care burden, therefore beside of patient empowerment, could be educated efficient coping strategies for caregiver's burden reduction