Quality of Life and Economical Burden on Caregivers of Patients with Brain Tumor

Abstract

Family caregivers of brain tumor patients face many challenges which impact their quality of life and well-being and also causing burden to them economically. Whether challenged physically, emotionally, socially or spiritually, distress in one area may compound challenges in other areas. Caregiving affects a caregiver’s work and family financials, such as balancing a job and providing care to family members. A study was conducted to evaluate the quality of life and economical burden of brain tumor caregivers. 50 caregivers of patients who were diagnosed with brain tumor in Neurosurgical department of PGIMER, Hospital Chandigarh participated in the study. Data were collected by using a demographical proforma and quality of life Index - Cancer scale (CQOLC) was used to assess the quality of life of caregivers of brain tumor and to measure the financial burden of caring for an cancer patient, the financial cost dimension of the Cost of Care Index was used. It was determined that the majority of caregivers were young and male. Almost all the participants had life quality of life lower than normal with mean of 88.9±10.6. 30% of the family caregivers agreed that caregiving for the care receiver was causing them to dip into savings. Again, 15% of the family caregivers indicated that they and their families could not afford those little extras because of the expenses to care for the care receiver. Over a one third (35%) indicated that their family or they had to give up necessities because of the expense to provide care. Another 20% of the caregivers indicated that caring for the care receiver was too expensive.

Keywords: Brain tumor, caregivers, financial distress, quality of life

 Cite this Article

Maninder deep kaur, Manisha Nagi, Ashok Kumar et al. Quality of Life and Economical Burden on Caregivers of Patients with Brain Tumor. Research and Reviews: Journal of Neuroscience. 2016; 6(3): 15–21p.