| dc.description.abstract | Primary Stress from the burden of providing care for a patient with cancer frequently results in reduced Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) for caregivers. The majority of research done in Western populations has demonstrated a link between higher caring stress and poorer mental and physical health as well as earlier death among family caregivers. The results of those studies could not be directly applicable to the people of Kenya, particularly in Western Kenya where the sociocultural and ethnic backgrounds are distinct. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the variables that were associated with the health-related quality of life of primary caregivers for cancer patients in Kakamega County. The specific objectives of the proposed study were to assess the socio-economic factors, determine patient factors and evaluate and the relationship between psychological factors and HRQoL among primary care givers of cancer patients in Kakamega County. This was an institutional-based transverse analytical study design. Kakamega County Referral Hospital was purposively sampled as it has the hospital with western region cancer centre. The sampling unit were caregivers of cancer patients who were seen in the hospital. The caregivers were systematically sampled from a list drawn from the Cancer Centre register of cancer patients where the caregivers are captured as their treatment supporters and each and every cancer patient is expected to have a caregiver. The sample size was 422 primary care givers after calculation. Data collection tool was contracted from a QOL questionnaire such as WHOQoL-BREF which was created to gauge both objective and subjective aspect of QOL and PHQ9/GAD-7 which are more sensitive and has a wider applicability. The SPSS version 26 is a statistical package for social sciences was used for data entry, cleaning and analysis. Socio-economic factors such as marital status (P=0.043), residence (P=0.005), occupation (P=0.011) and income (P=0.027) were significantly associated with HRQoL. Patient related factors like mode of treatment (P=0.022) and type of test done(P=0.033) were significantly associated with HRQoL. Caregiver knowledge and family support related factors like seriousness of cancer as a disease(P=0.000), other family members offering help with care(P=0.004), other family members with cancer(P=0.038) and chronic illness(P=0.000) were significantly associated with HRQoL. Psychological related factors like depression (P=0.000), anxiety(P=0.017), perceived quality of life(P=0.000) and being satisfied with one’s health (P=0.013) were significantly associated with HRQoL. The study concluded that socio-economic factors, psychological factors, patient factors and care giver’s knowledge on cancer were associated with health-related quality of life among caregivers of cancer patients. The study recommended that financial charges for cancer management could be subsided as this could relieve the financial burden care givers are facing. Other family members should support primary care givers not only financially, but also psychologically to ease the burden of the primary care giver. Health care providers should create sometime to educate caregivers on various types of cancer their management, side effect of the drugs and how to assist their patients at home thereby easing the burden of cancer, as a seriousness of the disease. Psychosocial support group networks should be established for caregivers through multiple communication channels thereby reducing the mental and psychological burden experienced by caregivers. | en_US |
