Comparison of stress coping attitudes in caregivers for cancer and non-cancer patients on palliative care

Introduction
Changes in the social and emotional state of patient caregivers are associated with the individual care burden of the patient rather than the diagnosis of the patient. Our aim was to compare the stress levels and coping attitudes of caregivers who give palliative care to patients with cancer and non-cancer.

Material and methods
This non-randomised, controlled study included caregivers providing palliative care to patients diagnosed with cancer and non-cancer in the palliative care unit. The participants were evaluated in respect of age, gender, duration of caregiving, relationship to the patient, marital status, level of education, occupation, psychiatric history, chronic disease history, and smoking status using a data collection form, and the means of coping with stress with the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (COPE) scale.

Results
Evaluation was made of a total of 80 participants comprising 40 (50%) caregivers of patients diagnosed with cancer and 40 (50%) caregivers of patients not diagnosed with cancer. Female gender, smoking, and caregiving duration were significantly higher (p = 0.009, p = 0.001, p = 0.001, respectively) and educational level was lower (p = 0.022) in the caregivers of non-cancer patients. In the subscales of COPE, the scores of suppressing other activities (p < 0.001), mental disengagement (p = 0.001), and emotion-focussed coping (p = 0.007) were higher in the group of caregivers of non-cancer patients.

Conclusions
Because the duration of the cancer patient’s need for care is shorter than that of non-cancer patients, this may cause the caregivers of cancer patients to be less able to adapt to the stressful process they experience than the caregivers of non-cancer patients.