Coping and distress among spouse caregivers to older patients with cancer: An intricate path

The population in the Western world is aging, while the cancer survival rates are systematically increasing. As a result of these demographic facts, more and more older patients with cancer will be taken care of by informal family caregivers. Caregiving is a complex task that may have physical and mental repercussions. Without proper guidance and skills, caregivers may become a burden upon the healthcare and public welfare systems that will have to deal with both older patients with cancer and their caregivers. The current paper presents a brief review of the literature concerning caregivers of older patients with cancer and describes preliminary results comparing family caregivers to a control group in measures of distress and coping. Results indicate that among the research group, there were higher levels of psychological distress and physical problems. The only coping strategy used more frequently by caregivers was acceptance; avoidant coping strategies were found to be highly correlated with distress; and acceptance was negatively correlated to distress only among the men caregivers, where social and instrumental support were negatively correlated to psychological distress among the women in the research group. The results show paths for developing intervention strategies for caregivers of older patients with cancer.