burden of care

Patients with cancer who live at home often require help with activities of daily living, basic medical care (eg, injections), social needs, and patient advocacy. Most of that support comes from intimate caregivers, typically members of the patient's family. These family caregivers themselves require support so that they can be effective and maintain their own well-being while caring for the patient with cancer. Research shows that support for caregivers contributes to achieving these goals.

Aim: To describe family members' experiences of attending to an old person with diabetes receiving home care services, including their interaction with the formal caregivers. Methods and Results: The study has a qualitative descriptive design. From May to August 2015, eight family members were interviewed. Interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder which affects the quality of life of patient and their family. Sleep disorders appear in 80-90% of PD patients and have a great impact on the PD well-being. We examined the relationship of patients' sleep quality and depression on burden, mood, quality of life, and quality of sleep of their caregivers. A multicenter, regional (Veneto), observational, cross-sectional study that included 55 patient-caregiver pairs was conducted.

Aim: To identify factors reported with negative and positive outcomes for caregivers of the traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury cohorts, to investigate what interventions have been studied to support carers and to report what effectiveness has been found. Methods: Scoping systematic review. Electronic databases and websites were searched from 1990 to December 2015. Studies were agreed for inclusion using pre-defined criteria. Relevant information from included studies was extracted and quality assessment was completed.

Background: In Turkey, individuals with schizophrenia usually live with their families. Therefore, families are main caregivers and face psychological, financial and social problems. Aim: The aim of this study is to understand the personal burdens and coping strategies, and social support affecting the families that provide care to the individuals with schizophrenia. Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 31 members of 12 families.

This feasibility study aimed to identify and address the support needs of family carers (FCs) of people living with dementia and to assess whether the use of the Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool (CSNAT) intervention in home‐based care was acceptable and relevant to FCs. The CSNAT intervention comprised two FC support needs assessment visits, 7 weeks apart, plus associated actions addressing prioritised needs by the Client Care Advisors of a community care service in Western Australia in 2015.

Research shows the stressful demands of caregiving to older family members can have negative effects on physical health. The effects on physical health may include: immune system functioning, heart rate reactivity, raised blood pressure levels, and increased risk of mortality among older spousal caregivers. Gender differences in caregivers' outcomes exist because, compared with male caregivers, female caregivers face higher levels of caregiving stressors, have fewer social resources, and report lower levels of psychological and physical health.

Although informal caregiving is a vital element in the process of supporting individuals with dependency, it is unrecognised most of the time, particularly by caregivers themselves. In Saudi Arabia, little attention has been devoted to informal caregivers; therefore, scarce coverage of this topic is obvious within the literature.

Purpose: This review aims to determine the effectiveness of mindfulness‐based interventions (MBIs) and educational interventions (EIs) as supportive care for family caregivers (FCs) of patients with cancer. Design and Methods: Review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines. The search protocol was performed using EBSCO, Google Scholar, and Science Direct for the studies published between 2007 and 2017. Findings: Little evidence is available on the usefulness of MBIs among FCs of patients with cancer.

Purpose: To evaluate the degree of psychological distress in family caregivers of people with dementia. Design and Methods: A nonprobabilistic sample of 54 dyads (people with dementia and family caregivers) was recruited. A sociodemographic questionnaire, the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), and the Barthel Index were used for data collection. Findings: About half of the caregivers had significant levels of psychological distress.