Caregiver burden for informal caregivers of patients after surgical treatment of early-stage lung cancer.

Abstract

Caregivers of lung cancer patients frequently experience psychological distress and high caregiver burden. Previous studies have focused on caregiver burden for patients with advanced lung cancer, while few studies focused on the caregiver burden among informal caregivers of postoperative patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This study aimed to (a) examine caregiver burden for caregivers of patients with early-stage NSCLC after surgical treatment and (b) identify predictive factors related to caregiver burden of patients with early-stage NSCLC. A cross-sectional study was conducted in a university-affiliated hospital in Changsha, China. A total of 385 patients with early-stage NSCLC and postsurgical treatment and their caregivers were included in this study. Caregiver burden was evaluated using the Zarit caregiver burden interview (ZBI). A set of questionnaires was used to assess psychosocial characteristics of participants, including simplified coping style questionnaire, social support rate scale, and hospital anxiety and depression scale. Hierarchical regression analysis was applied to identify factors associated with caregiver burden. We followed STROBE checklist for reporting the study. The average ZBI score was 29.1 ± 11.4. Most caregivers (62.6%) demonstrated mild to moderate caregiving burden. The duration of caregiving (β=0.18, p < .001), passive coping of caregiver (β=0.17, p=.001) and anxiety (β=0.13, p=.007) were significant predictors of caregiving burden. A variance of 17.6% in caregiving burden was explained by these identified factors. Caregivers of early-stage NSCLC patients experience a mild to moderate level of caregiver burden. The duration of caregiving, passive coping and anxiety are factors associated with caregiver burden. Clinicians should provide early care to support new roles of family members as caregivers.