Assessing cancer caregivers' needs for an early targeted psychosocial support project: The experience of the oncology department of the Poliambulanza Foundation.

ABSTRACTObjective:Caregivers playa key role in the managementofpatients with cancer.However, somestudies have suggested that caregivers have even more unmet needs than the patients.Method: To better identify the needs and changes in the lifestyles of the caregivers in ourpractice and to plan a targeted support project to decrease caregiver burden, we administeredthe Caregiver’s QoL Index–Cancer (CQoLC) to 200 consecutive caregivers. This questionnaireassesses psychological well-being, the relationship with healthcare professionals,administration of finances, lifestyle disruption, and positive adaptation.Results: Our data showed that being a caregiver to a patient with metastatic diseasenegatively affected females mostly with regard to mental and emotional burden, while mencomplained more about their sexual life (42.3 vs. 33.6%), although this result was notsignificant. Some 93.5% of caregivers reported that they were pleased with their role, while83.4% were concerned about financial difficulties.Significance of results: We strongly believe that early supportive care directed not only atpatients but also to caregivers may improve the quality of life (QoL) in this population. We arecurrently developing a targeted support project to decrease caregiver burden.KEYWORDS: Cancer, Caregivers, Psychological support, Quality of lifeINTRODUCTIONWe would like to start with the following thoughtfrom John Marshall: “What we forget all too often isthe person sitting next to the patient. (. . .) Lovethat caregiver just as much as you love that patient”(Marshall, 2011). With more than 1.5 million newcancer diagnoses each yearand more than 12 millioncancer survivors (American Cancer Society, 2012), itis estimated that two of every three American famil-ieswillhaveatleastonememberdiagnosedwithcan-cer at some point.In 2012, 364.000 new cancers (excluding skin car-cinomas) were diagnosed in Italy, and there weremorethan2millionItalianswhohadapreviousdiag-nosis of cancer (AIOM–AIRTUM, 2012). In responseto these impressive data, the National Comprehen-sive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines on Survi-vorship recently provided the following definition ofa cancer survivor: “An individual is considered a