Examination of mental problems in the contexts of care burden and perceived social support in the mothers of children with pediatric cancer

Objective: Evaluating the care burden of in many dimensions of the physical, psychological and social loads of caregivers in the treatment process of children who receiving cancer treatment during the treatment process and also in this process, it is aimed to examine the effect of social support that they perceive from the family, social environment and treatment team (doctor, nurse) on the mental health. Within this context, it is aimed to examine the extent to which the perceived social support variables affect the mental health problems and to determine the existence of a meaningful relationship between the maintenance burden and the social support and the perceived social support and the mental health problems of mothers. Method: 38 companion mothers whose children between the ages of 0-17 were receiving cancer treatment participated in the study. The Burden of Care Scale (CAS), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale (MPSSS) were administered to the participating mothers. Frequency and percentage distribution, independent samples t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation test, multiple regression and hierarchical multiple regression analyzes were applied to evaluate the data. Results: As a result of the research, it is observed that there was a strong positive and significant relationship between the brief symptom inventory and care burden, while the brief symptom inventory had a negative, moderately significant relationship with perceived social support, and a negative, moderately significant relationship between care burden and perceived social support. Finally, it was determined that the social support and care burden perceived by the companion mothers jointly predicted their mental health problems, and in the hierarchical multiple regression analysis, it was concluded that these two independent variables statistically significant predicted the dependent variable, the mental health problems. Conclusion: The findings suggest that the care burden variable is more powerful in predicting mental health problems than the perceived social support variable. The increase in the level of care burden also increases mental health problems. At the level of perceived social support, this is the opposite; It has been determined that an increase in the level of social support reduces mental health problems. Key Words: Cancer, Caregiver, Caregiver Burden, Mental Health Problems, Perceived Social Support.