Abstract
Positive feelings are an important health dimension for family caregivers of cancer patients. The aim of this study was to investigate whether Langerian mindfulness is a valid proactive method to increase the positive feelings of family caregivers for cancer patients. Participants were randomly assigned to either a mindfulness group or a mindlessness group and completed the Caregiver Reaction Assessment (CRA) as a measure of caregivers’ feelings before the intervention. Subsequently, both groups were given four sessions of mindfulness training using “innovation classification”. Finally, participants completed the Langer Mindfulness Scale (LMS) and the Positive Aspects of Caregiving (PAC) scale as post-intervention measures. The results revealed that participants in the mindfulness and mindlessness groups differed significantly in LMS and PAC scores, with the mindfulness group having higher levels of positive feelings than those in the mindlessness group. The results also indicated that mindfulness level significantly predicted positive feelings of caregivers. Thus mindful interventions may play a meaningful role in promoting family caregivers’ spirituality and faith, improving the willingness of sharing their thoughts, beliefs, and grief, which could be useful for increasing the positive feelings of caregivers.
Highlights
Incidences of cancer in the world have been rising, with the World Health Organization listing cancer as a chronic disease of high intensity and sustained care needs
Descriptive analyses and independent-samples t-tests were performed using SPSS 20.0 to examine the differences between the mindfulness and mindlessness groups
The results showed that the scores of the Caregiver Reaction Assessment (CRA) and Positive Aspects of Caregiving (PAC) were significantly positively correlated (r = 0.47, p < 0.01)
Summary
Incidences of cancer in the world have been rising, with the World Health Organization listing cancer as a chronic disease of high intensity and sustained care needs. Caregivers are critically important to provide care and enhance the well-being of patients with cancer [1]. Most previous research has indicated that family caregivers experience substantial psychological stress and depression [2]. As the focus has been on negative effects on family caregivers, the positive effects of caregiving have been overlooked [3]. This study aimed to investigate family caregivers’ positive feelings and salutary benefits that can arise from the caregiving process. The majority of research on cancer caregiving has long focused on stress, anxiety, and depression [4]
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