Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 May;32(5):663-681.
doi: 10.1002/pon.6126. Epub 2023 Apr 8.

Supportive interventions for family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer: A systematic review

Yvonne N Becqué  1   2 , Maaike van der Wel  1 , Muzeyyen Aktan-Arslan  1   2 , Anne Geert van Driel  2 , Judith A C Rietjens  1   3 , Agnes van der Heide  1 , Erica Witkamp  1   2
Affiliations

Supportive interventions for family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer: A systematic review

Yvonne N Becqué et al. Psychooncology. 2023 May.

Abstract

Objective: Family caregivers are often intensively involved in palliative and end-of-life cancer care. A variety of interventions to support family caregivers have been developed, differing in target population, modality, and components. We aimed to systematically examine characteristics and the effectiveness of interventions to support family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer.

Methods: A systematic review was conducted using Embase, Medline Ovid, Web of Science, Cochrane, Google Scholar, and Cinahl. This review included quantitative studies published from January 2004 until January 2020 reporting on interventions to support family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer in all care settings.

Results: Out of 7957 titles, 32 studies were included. Twenty-two studies were randomized controlled trials. Interventions were delivered to four target populations: individual family caregivers (n = 15), family caregiver-patient dyads (n = 11), families (n = 2) and peer groups (n = 4). Most interventions (n = 26) were delivered face-to-face or by phone, two were delivered online. Most interventions included multiple components and were primarily aimed at supporting family caregivers' self-care. Twenty-nine interventions were shown to have beneficial effects on family caregiver outcomes, mostly in the psycho-emotional (n = 24), daily functioning (n = 13) and social dimension (n = 6). Individual interventions were mainly effective in the psycho-emotional dimension, dyad and family interventions in the psycho-emotional and social domain, and group interventions mainly had an effect on daily functioning.

Conclusions: Interventions to support family caregivers in advanced cancer care vary widely. Most intervention studies reported beneficial effects for the wellbeing of family caregivers. There is evidence that the target group is associated with beneficial effects on different outcome dimensions.

Keywords: cancer; caregiver; family; intervention; oncology; palliative care; psycho-oncology; psychosocial support; review.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Dyba T, Randi G, Bray F, et al. The European cancer burden in 2020: incidence and mortality estimates for 40 countries and 25 major cancers. Eur J Cancer. 2021;157:308-347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejca.2021.07.039
    1. World Health Organization. WHO Report on Cancer: Setting Priorities, Investing Wisely and Providing Care for All Report No.: 9240001298; 2020.
    1. Rowland C, Hanratty B, Pilling M, Van Den Berg B, Grande G. The contributions of family care-givers at end of life: a national post-bereavement census survey of cancer carers' hours of care and expenditures. Palliat Med. 2017;31(4):346-355. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269216317690479
    1. Higginson IJ, Yi D, Johnston BM, et al. Associations between informal care costs, care quality, carer rewards, burden and subsequent grief: the international, access, rights and empowerment mortality follow-back study of the last 3 months of life (IARE I study). BMC Med. 2020;18(1):1-13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-01768-7
    1. Zavagli V, Raccichini M, Ercolani G, Franchini L, Varani S, Pannuti R. Care for carers: an investigation on family caregivers’ needs, tasks, and experiences. Transl Medicine@ UniSa. 2019;19:54.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources