Purpose This study examined the psychosocial adjustment and needs of family caregivers of head and neck cancer survivors at 6–24 months post-treatment. Methods Family caregivers of head and neck cancer survivors (N = 89) completed mailed questionnaires that assessed demographic variables, mental health, quality of life, and practical and informational needs. Results Thirty-eight percent of caregivers reported moderate to high distress. However, quality of life scores for the entire sample (N = 89) were better than the scores reported in initial validation studies on caregivers of patients undergoing active cancer treatment. Greater time spent caregiving was associated with worse psychological well-being, but also more positive adaptation to caregiving. In addition, 39% of caregivers reported that all of their practical and informational needs were being met. Conclusions Findings suggest that research and clinical efforts are needed to address the psychosocial concerns of this population.

This study examined interest in and barriers to participation in a multiple family group intervention (MFG) for adult cancer survivors and their family caregivers. The intervention was developed to assist families in coping with the persistent challenges of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation. Eighty eligible families having a member diagnosed and treated for cancers of the head and neck region completed a baseline quality of life survey consisting of standardized psychosocial measures, and then all patients and their families were invited to participate in a day-long multiple family group program. However, despite extensive recruitment efforts and accommodations to address anticipated barriers for nonparticipation, only 15 of the 80 (19%) eligible families agreed to attend the MFG workshop. Post-MFG, participating families reported high levels of program satisfaction and usefulness. These findings are discussed in the context of increasing the use of family-focused interventions in cancer care settings.

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Copyright by the American PsycholosicallAssmrldllijlb age R2 for age when it was considered alone was .158, but the value was reduced to only.035 after the variation in a composite measure of perceptual speed was controlled. These results therefore suggest that almost 807o (i.e., [. I 58 -.035 ]l I 58 = .778) ofthe age-related variance in certain measures offluid cognition is associated with variations in perceptual speed.The research reported in this article was designed with two major goals in mind. One goal was to examine the generality of the speed-mediation phenomenon by including measures of memory in addition to measures of fluid or process aspects of cognition. Extending the research in this direction is ofinterest, because less convincing support for a mediational effect of speed was found with m€asures reflecting memory functioning in the partial correlation analyses reported in Salthouse (l 985a). That is, partialing a measure ofprocessing speed had a smaller effect on the correlations between age and measures of memory than it did on the correlations between age and measures of other types of cognitive functioning. Moreover, additional analyses on the data from the Salthouse et al. (1988) project similar to those summarized in Table I also revealed weaker attenuation ofthe age relations ficr measures representing memory functioning than for measures representing other types of cognitive functioning. For example, the attenuation was only 63.8Vo for a measure of the accuracy of reproducing the identities of items in a matrix, only 4'l .59o for a measure of the accuracy of reproducing the positions of items in a matrix, and only l6.7vo for a measure of paired-associate memory.The smaller attenuation of the age-related memory differences after control of measures of speed raises the possibility that quickness of mental operations may be a less important factor in the age differences in traditional memory tests than in cognitive tests assessing reasoning or spatial abilities. Although this speculation is plausible on the basis ofthe available results, stronger evidence ofthe differential influence ofspeed on cognitive and memory measures is desirable before one can conclude that speed factors have a minimal role in the relations between age and memory. One type of evidence that would be relevant in this regard would be a discovery that substantial age-related effects remained after statistical control of a measure of perceptual speed, or equivalently, a finding that the