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To determine the effectiveness of brief reminiscence-based psychosocial interventions in alleviating psychological distress in cancer patients.
Cancer patients suffer tremendous psycho-spiritual pain, which affects their quality of life. Brief reminiscence-based psychosocial interventions have demonstrated positive effects on the mental health of cancer patients; however, the efficacy of these interventions has been inconsistent.
A systematic review and meta-analysis.
This review was conducted and reported in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 checklist provided by the EQUATOR network. The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, PsycINFO, PubMed, Embase, CINAHL and Scopus databases were systematically searched from inception to 27 November 2022 to identify randomised controlled trials (RCTs) published in English.
Twenty studies involving 1744 cancer participants were included. The meta-analysis showed statistically significant effects of brief reminiscence-based psychosocial interventions on hope, anxiety and depression at post-intervention. A separate analysis revealed that brief reminiscence-based psychosocial interventions had a sustainable effect on hope, spiritual well-being, anxiety and depression at 1 month after the intervention. However, no statistically significant effect on quality of life was found in our study either immediately after the intervention or at 1 month.
Brief reminiscence-based psychosocial interventions can significantly reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms and improve hope and spiritual well-being in cancer patients.
This study further supports that brief reminiscence-based psychosocial interventions should be incorporated into the routine care of cancer patients to address their psychosocial distress.
All authors of this article contributed to the study conception and design. All authors of the included studies provided original data for this paper.
To examine the multidimensional properties of caregiver burden among family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer in a palliative context.
A sequential, explanatory, mixed-method study was performed.
Family caregivers of patients diagnosed with advanced cancer were recruited from a palliative care department of a third-level hospital in Sichuan Province, China. The Caregiver Burden Inventory, Social Support Rating Scale and Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale were used to collect quantitative data, and a total of 150 caregivers were recruited from January 2022 to September 2022. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews, and a total of 22 caregivers were interviewed from October 2022 to November 2022. Survey data were analysed using descriptive statistics, and the factors of caregiver burden were identified using the Mann–Whitney U test, Kruskal–Wallis H test and Spearman correlations. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was performed to analyse the interview data to initially explore the multidimensions of caregiver burden. The following-a-thread method and convergence coding matrix were used for triangulation to examine the multidimensional properties of caregiver burden.
The participants experienced a moderate level of caregiver burden (32.97 ± 13.09). Through triangulation, six meta-themes and nine meta-subthemes were identified as multidimensional properties of caregiver burden, including physical (too many caring tasks and poor health condition), emotional (strong negative emotions resulting from patients' suffering and insufficient and ineffective family communication), social (less social interaction and social role conflict) and economic burdens, factors that aggravate burden (prevention and control of COVID-19 and spousal relationship with patients) and factors that mitigate burden (social support).
Multiple dimensions of caregiver burden were experienced by family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer in the palliative context. Family-centred palliative care must be further developed.
It is important to develop family-centred palliative care. Therefore, the focus must be on developing a rational understanding of palliative care in public and a culture-oriented death education in palliative units.
This study adopted a mixed-method approach to comprehensively understand the phenomenon of and factors in caregiver burden in the Chinese palliative oncology context. Our findings suggest that family caregivers in palliative oncology experience a moderate level of caregiver burden, with dimensions including physical, emotional, social and economic burdens, among which emotional burden is the most prominent. The findings of this study provide policy makers and nurse practitioners with targets to be addressed in family-centred care in Chinese palliative units.
The results of this study are reported based on the guidelines of the Mixed-Methods Article Reporting Standards.
Eligible caregivers were invited to participate in the study and semi-structured interviews. Nurse managers of the palliative unit helped us access the patient-management system.
FreshRSS 