Obstet Gynecol Sci.  2022 Sep;65(5):441-450. 10.5468/ogs.22080.

The effect of a support program on the burden of spouses caring for their partners with breast cancer: a randomized controlled trial

• Hosseinnejad SZ
• Elyasi F
• Mousavinasab SN
• Shahhosseini Z

• KMID: 2533817
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5468/ogs.22080

Abstract

Objective
This study aimed to determine the effect of a support program on burden of spouses caring for their partners with breast cancer.
Methods
This randomized controlled trial was conducted among spouses of women with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy at a referral chemotherapy center in Iran. They were assigned to intervention (n=40) and control (n=40) groups using permuted block randomization. Three small group sessions lasted 45-60 minutes, followed by three telephone-based sessions, lasting 15-20 minutes (twice a week). The intervention sessions included defining stress management strategies in different situations: strengthening creativity, optimism, and management in planning, and defining the role of the caregiver. Primary outcome was care burden, and secondary outcomes were spouses’ stress, satisfaction with intervention, and partners’ quality of life (QOL). The caregiver burden inventory, depression anxiety stress questionnaire, World Health Organization QOL brief version, and client satisfaction questionnaire were completed before and after the intervention and at a 6-week follow-up.
Results
Thirty-eight participants in each group with a mean age of 44.24±9.01 years completed the study. Repeated measures analysis of variance showed a significant difference in the care burden (P<0.05; effect size, 0.70), stress (P<0.05; effect size, 0.64), and women’s QOL (P<0.05; effect size, 0.67) before and after the intervention.
Conclusion
The results of this study can be used to develop interventions, targeting the care burden and stress of spouses of women with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy.

Keyword

Caregiver bnurden; Psychological stresses; Breast cancer; Chemotherapy

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Consort flow diagram.

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  Fig. 2 Results of the Bonferroni post hoc test for care burden pairwise comparisons between the groups. CBI, caregiver burden inventory.

Reference

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