IDENTIFYING THE NEEDS OF CAREGIVERS OF CANCER PATIENTS AT HOME.
Contributors: University of Kansas.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 356
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Health.; Sociology, Individual and Family Studies.
Description: Increasing numbers of cancer patients are being cared for at home by home caregivers. The primary purpose of this methodological, correlational study was to identify, categorize and assess the importance of needs expressed by home caregivers and to determine how well these needs were satisfied. Caregiver characteristics and patient activity were examined for relationships with needs, and needs were examined over time. A 98-item Home Caregiver Need Survey developed to provide necessary data demonstrated internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity.

Six clearly described need categories emerged in Principal factor analysis with promax rotation: Psychological, Information, Patient care, Personal, Spiritual, and Household. Caregivers greatest needs were informational and psychological.

Caregivers surveyed were individuals identified by cancer patients at home as the person who helped with the patients' physical care or helped patients cope with the disease process, but were not paid for caregiving. Data were collected three times over nine months from 492 caregivers selected by patients at two nonprofit community cancer agencies and two hospital outpatient oncology clinics in the Midwest.

Significant correlations between certain variables and caregiver needs were found. Caregivers living with their patients had increased personal needs, and caregiver age was inversely related to both psychological and personal needs. Caregiver income was inversely related to household needs. Women had more household needs than men. Caregivers' psychological, patient care, personal, and household needs were all inversely related to the activity levels of their patients. Both the importance and satisfaction of needs changed over time.

Findings indicate the need for nurses, and other health care providers, to establish more programs and services to meet the identified and unmet informational and psychological needs of caregivers of cancer patients at home. Frequent reassessment seems indicated based on change data.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-04, Section: B, page: 1954.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 1990.

School code: 0099.