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. 2019 Jul-Sep;25(3):379-382.
doi: 10.4103/IJPC.IJPC_199_18.

Availability of Informal Caregivers for Palliative Care Patients with Cancer: Is there a Difference between Higher- and Lower-Income Settings

Raafat Abdel-Malek  1 , Dina E Farag  1 , Kyrillus S Shohdy  1 , Sarah Cox  2
Affiliations

Availability of Informal Caregivers for Palliative Care Patients with Cancer: Is there a Difference between Higher- and Lower-Income Settings

Raafat Abdel-Malek et al. Indian J Palliat Care. 2019 Jul-Sep.

Abstract

Objective: Family caregivers are the default caring personnel for terminal cancer patients. The characteristics, demographics, distribution, psychological burden, and socioeconomic standards differ between high- and low-income countries. We aimed to assess those factors and their direct reflection on both the patient and the caregiver.

Patients and methods: This is a comparative cross-sectional study for terminal cancer patients in the palliative care unit between the United Kingdom (UK) as a high-income community and Egypt as a low-income community. We assessed the different characteristics, demographics, living place, the degree of relevance, and the availability of caregivers.

Results: We have recruited 216 patients from the UK and 117 patients from Egypt. Informal caregivers were available in 74.5% and 92.3% for these patients with a mean age of 71.5 (standard deviation [SD] 16) years and 50.9 (SD 15.18) years, respectively. There has been a statistically significant difference between the two countries' caregivers in being married, family, and living in the same household (P < 0.0001).

Conclusion: Low-income countries are more common to have an informal caregiver who is a family member of different degree of relevance. Caregivers in low-income settings tend to be younger, of the female gender, married, and living in the same household than in high-income ones.

Keywords: Cancer; caregivers; developing countries; income; palliative care; socioeconomic.

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Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The high female: Male ratio among caregivers is evident worldwide
Figure 2
Figure 2
The mean age of caregivers across different studies along with the current one
Figure 3
Figure 3
Diagram summarizes results from different studies on the type of caregivers that is in most cases the partner
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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