Korean J Adult Nurs.  2022 Apr;34(2):225-232. 10.7475/kjan.2022.34.2.225.

Distress, Family Resilience, and Quality of Life among Family Caregivers of Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy: The Moderating Role of Family Resilience

• Ahn SH
• Kim SH

• KMID: 2529699
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.7475/kjan.2022.34.2.225

Abstract

Purpose
This study aimed to evaluate distress, family resilience, and Quality of Life (QoL) among family caregivers of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and explore whether family resilience moderates the association between distress and QoL.
Methods
This is a cross-sectional study. One hundred seventeen family caregivers of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy were recruited through the oncology outpatient clinic and two oncology wards at a tertiary university hospital. The participants completed self-reported questionnaires, including the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Family Resilience Scale-Cancer, and Caregivers’ Quality of Life Index-Cancer. Descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and hierarchical regression analysis were used for statistical analysis.
Results
The mean distress score was 15.31±6.91, the mean family resilience score was 112.71±14.11, and the mean QoL score was 71.19±18.90. After controlling for potential covariates, distress was found to be negatively associated with QoL (β=-.45, p<.001), whereas family resilience was positively associated with QoL (β=.49, p<.001), explaining 62.8% of the variance. However, family resilience did not moderate the association between distress and QoL in this study.
Conclusion
Distress and family resilience are crucial factors associated with QoL in the caregivers of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. This finding indicates that oncology nurses should develop interventions to relieve distress and enhance family resilience to improve family caregivers’ QoL. Further studies are required to confirm the moderating role of family resilience.

Keyword

Caregivers; Psychological distress; Quality of life; Resilience; psychological