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Cancer Caretakers Need Care, Too NewsMax.com Wires Family members who take care of a loved one with cancer are very likely to ignore their own emotional health and should not be afraid to ask for help, according to a new study. Researchers from Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Yale University interviewed 200 caregivers for advanced cancer patients about their own mental health. They asked questions designed to identify major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder and found that 26 (13%) of the caregivers had one or more of the disorders. "These caregivers are experiencing a clinically significant level of distress," said study co-author Holly Prigerson, PhD, director of the Center for Psycho-oncology and Palliative Care Research at Dana-Farber, "yet they seem to be neglecting their own mental health needs, quite possibly due to the lack of time, energy, or financial resources associated with caregiving." The most common disorder among the caregivers was panic disorder, which affected 16 people (8%). Only about 3% of the general U.S. population exhibits this disorder, according to the study authors, so the finding suggests caregivers may be more at risk than others of developing this problem. Major depressive disorder affected nine caregivers (4.5%), eight people (4%) exhibited post-traumatic stress disorder, and seven people (3.5%) had generalized anxiety disorder. Story Continues Below
Prigerson and her colleagues said oncologists and other "front-line" health professionals could be a bridge for caregivers to get the mental health help they need, because they interact with caregivers on a regular basis. "The oncology team is in the ideal position to initiate such discussions and guide the caregiver toward the appropriate resources to help them deal with the stress of caregiving," Prigerson said. "Part of the stress is caused by having to perform ever more-complicated procedures in the course of caregiving - dealing with feeding tubes, ventilators, IVs," she explained. "Some doctors don't ask the caregiver if they know how to do the procedure or are comfortable with it." Doctors should be asking these questions, she said, and making referrals to home care agencies when caregivers need extra guidance. Prigerson also stress that caregivers themselves need to be assertive and ask for help if they feel insecure about what they must do for their loved one. The study appeared in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
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