A Study on the impact of intervention program for the care givers of people with head and neck cancer

Abstract

Head and neck cancer patients experienced profound psychosocial and functional abilities because of the location of the disease and treatment. It hampers their activities of daily living making them dependant on the caregivers. Subsequently caregivers have different needs especially during the initial phase of hospitalization because they are unfamiliar to the whole process, unprepared for the new task and new role and lack the necessary knowledge and skills in care giving. Thus they face a number of problems. Hence this study aimed to understand their needs, develop psycho educational intervention program based on it and assess its feasibility. It was taken up because of limited number of Indian studies and increase in the number of incidences owing to the changing life style. Quasi experimental research design and sequential mixed research design was used. The variables taken for the study were Caregiver burden and distress. Zarit burden interview schedule and Caregiver Self Assessment Questionnaire was used to collect data from 30 caregivers of head and neck cancer patient before and after the Psycho educational intervention program was delivered. Paired sample t test and Cohen s d tests were used for data analysis. The effect size for burden and distress was 2.01 and 1.91 respectively. Findings showed that the intervention program significantly reduced the level of burden and distress of caregivers and therefore it can be implemented in hospitals to promote good caregiver health and effective patient care. newline