Caregiver quality of life in advanced cancer: Qualitative results from a trial of early palliative care

Abstract

Background: Early involvement of palliative care improves patient quality of life; however, quantitative studies have not yet demonstrated a similar effect for caregivers, for whom the construct of quality of life is less well developed.

Aim: To conceptualise quality of life of caregivers from their own perspective and to explore differences in themes between those who did or did not receive an early palliative care intervention.

Design: Qualitative grounded theory study.

Setting: Tertiary comprehensive cancer centre.

Participants: Following participation in a cluster-randomised trial of early palliative care, 23 caregivers (14 intervention and 9 control) of patients with advanced cancer participated in semi-structured interviews to discuss their quality of life.

Results: The core category was 'living in the patient's world'. Five related themes were 'burden of illness and caregiving', 'assuming the caregiver role', 'renegotiating relationships', 'confronting mortality' and 'maintaining resilience'. There was thematic consistency between trial arms, except for the last two themes, which had distinct differences. Participants in the intervention group engaged in open discussion about the end of life, balanced hope with realism and had increased confidence from a range of professional supports. Controls tended to engage in 'deliberate ignorance' about the future, felt uncertain about how they would cope and lacked knowledge of available supports.

Conclusions: Caregiver quality of life is influenced profoundly by the interaction with the patient and should be measured with specific questionnaires that include content related to confronting mortality and professional supports. This would improve delineation of quality of life for caregivers and allow greater sensitivity to change. Registration: clinicaltrials.gov NCT01248624.

Keywords: Palliative care; advanced cancer; caregiver; grounded theory; qualitative research; quality of life.