psycho‐oncology

Objective: Caregivers for patients with cancer have an integral role in maintaining patients' health. Although patients and caregivers experience the impact of cancer individually, studies suggest their health is interdependent. The objective of this review was to synthesize the literature on interdependent physical and psychological morbidity in patient-caregiver dyads published since 2016.

Objective: Informal caregivers play a fundamental role in care and decision making with hematological cancer patients. Concordant patient‐caregiver communication is a critical antecedent to high quality decision making. Little is known about patterns of dyadic communication throughout the cancer treatment continuum.

Objective: Receiving a diagnosis of head and neck cancer is devastating for patients and family carers and causes high levels of distress. Previous studies report that carer distress levels exceed that of patients, but go largely unnoticed by health professionals. To date, there is a paucity of studies that have described carers' perspectives of the lived experience of caring for a loved one diagnosed with head and neck cancer. The aim of this study was to explore the lived experiences of carers of patients diagnosed with head and neck cancer.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences of Korean family caregivers of patients with cancer by reviewing recent literature. Methods: Five electronic databases were searched—MEDLINE, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and PubMed for English literature, and Korean Information Service System (KISS), and Research Information Sharing Service (RISS) for Korean literature for articles published from January 2010 to March 2020 using the key words cancer, caregiver, and Korean.

Key Points

• With social distancing and visitors limited in healthcare, caregivers of cancer patients are at increased risk for isolation.
• Caregivers may have learned particular lessons that can foster resilience from isolation.
• Telehealth and phone check‐ins offer opportunities to support caregivers.
• Policy initiatives have the potential to continue support for caregivers post‐COVID.
• Supporting caregivers is a community effort, and its importance should not be forgotten post‐COVID.

Background: Social support is a key component in maintaining cancer caregiver well-being, and many resources exist to facilitate caregivers' use of social support (eg, cancer support groups). This study sought to determine how informal cancer caregivers use social resources over the course of caregiving.; Methods: The data are from the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System study of informal caregivers (n = 202) of patients with recently diagnosed lung cancer.