Identifying the needs of home caregivers of patients with cancer.

Increasing numbers of patients with cancer are being cared for by home caregivers. The primary purpose of this methodologic, correlational study was to identify, categorize, and assess the importance of needs expressed by 492 home caregivers and to determine how well these needs were satisfied. Caregivers surveyed were selected from the records of two nonprofit community cancer agencies and two hospital outpatient oncology clinics in the Midwest. These individuals were identified by at-home patients with cancer as unpaid people who helped with physical care or coping with the disease process. Caregiver characteristics and patient activity were examined to determine their relationships to caregiver needs, and needs were examined over time. The 90-item Home Caregiver Need Survey used in this study was developed by the author in 1989 and demonstrated internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity. Using factor analysis, six need categories were identified: psychological, informational, patient care, personal, spiritual, and household. Caregivers' greatest needs were informational and psychological. Significant correlations between certain caregiver characteristics and caregiver needs and between caregiver needs and patients' activity levels were found. Both the importance and satisfying of needs changed over time. Findings indicate the urgent need for nurses, who usually provide support for caregivers, to establish specific programs and services to meet the identified and unmet informational and psychological needs of caregivers of at-home patients with cancer. Frequent reassessment of caregiver needs seems to be indicated.

Self-identified needs of patients with cancer at home and their home caregivers: a descriptive study.

Increasing numbers of patients with cancer are being cared for at home by family caregivers because of the chronicity of cancer and the transition of health care from hospital to home. This study describes the needs of 15 patients with cancer at home and 15 home caregivers. Using the Objects Content Test (OCT), 505 need statements were collected from the subjects. Three hundred patient needs and 192 caregiver needs were identified. Nurse researchers and oncology experts computer Q-sorted the 505 need statements into need categories previously established by Wingate and Lackey. Patients' greatest needs were psychological, physical, and informational. Caregivers' greatest needs were psychological, informational, and those related to household duties. Qualitative data reflected that both patients and caregivers needed support from family or friends, hope, and a sense of the future. Patients indicated a need for purposeful activities.