Psycho-Social Care for Family Caregivers of Patients with Cancer:A Critical Review

The variations and consequences of care giving are distributed through the population equally, that is, adult-child, spousal, child-parent and so forth with far reaching implications. The caregiver of a member of the family with a chronic or terminal illness is in a perpetually stressful situation. The patients illness, combined with the disabilities or increased dependency caused by illness, in many cases constitute a major stressor for the entire family generally and for the caregiver in particular. The stress is intensified by such patients attributes as behavior problems and psychological distress. In case of cancer the stressor is more likely to be the patient's physical dependency arising from the side effects of medical treatment. The caregiver like the patient is in a stressful situation because of the threat to the life of the loved one, loss of the previous relationship, decrease of independence, the prospect of a decline in income and alterations in family roles. The primary caregiver plays an important in the well-being of the care receiver by providing social, emotional and physical support. The psychological distress created by stress begins at the time that the patient has difficulty in functioning and on the discharge of the patient from the hospital. Increased stress is experienced when the patient health condition moves from curative to palliative care. The patient is completely dependent on the caregiver for physical and psychological support. The caregiver is the companion throughout the illness period and provides emotional support. During palliative care the caregiver experience greater physical and psychological stress, greater burden and poor quality of life which in turn affect their role as caregiver. The need of the caregiver goes unnoticed by family members and their health suffers leading to psychological distress. The need for intervention to caregivers is a necessity which is ignored or not given importance in rural and semi urban areas. It is time the government provide hospice care to patients so that the burden of caring has less impact on the health of the caregiver thus reducing their psychological distress.