Caregivers' Illness Perceptions Contribute to Quality of Life in Head and Neck Cancer Patients at Diagnosis

Abstract

This study investigated the contribution of patient and caregiver illness perceptions to the quality of life of head and neck cancer (HNC) patients. Ninety-eight patients and their caregivers (n = 80) completed questionnaires at diagnosis. Caregivers' illness perceptions were significantly more negative than patients with respect to consequences, timeline, treatment, concern, and the emotional impact of HNC. The interaction between some patient and caregiver illness perceptions explained additional variance in patient quality of life, above and beyond patients' own illness perceptions. These findings suggest that caregivers should be included in psychological interventions to improve HNC patient quality of life.

Physical and emotional well-being and support in newly diagnosed head and neck cancer patient–caregiver dyads

“…In a systematic review examining psychological functioning in HNC caregivers, caregivers were shown to experience significant anxiety and were especially susceptible to distress 6 months after treatment (Longacre, Ridge, Burtness, Galloway, & Fang, 2012). Recent studies have examined caregiver adjustment further, finding that caregivers have higher recurrence fears (Hodges & Humphris, 2009), worse illness outlook (Richardson, Morton, & Broadbent, 2015), and more post-traumatic stress disorder (Posluszny et al, 2015) compared to patients. Research has identified some HNC caregivers at risk for poor outcomes, including those caring for patients with more needs (Chen et al, 2009) or worse symptoms during treatment (Badr, Gupta, Sikora, & Posner, 2014).…”

Impact of Pain and Evaluation of Education and Self-Care in Patients with Head and Neck Cancer

“…Prior studies have shown that patients feel more confident and hopeful when conversations focus on patient needs and involve discussions where both patient and relatives are present [149,155,156]. The patients in Paper I who reported that they did receive adequate information felt reassured, a finding which is also in line with earlier studies [157][158][159]. Reassurance may entail individual medical information and improved understanding of the condition [157].…”

“…The patients in Paper I who reported that they did receive adequate information felt reassured, a finding which is also in line with earlier studies [157][158][159]. Reassurance may entail individual medical information and improved understanding of the condition [157].…”

Distress in long‐term head and neck cancer carers: a qualitative study of carers' perspectives

“…This type of informational intervention should ideally be delivered early after the patient's diagnosis, and preferably face to face (Richardson et al . ). It is also important for health professionals to be conscious that some caregivers may be uncertain about how to talk to professionals, and professionals may therefore may need to proactively bring up these discussions with caregivers (Longacre et al .…”

“…Head and neck caregivers may in fact be more distressed by head and neck cancer than the patients themselves (Richardson et al . ,b). Around a third of head and neck cancer relative/friends indicate that they believe that caring is a significant burden on caregivers (Precious et al .…”