The effect of solution-focused brief therapy-based groups on the caregiving burden of mothers with children with cancer

This study, which addresses the caregiving burden experienced by mothers whose children are undergoing cancer treatment, aims to alleviate this caregiving burden. Since the sample for this study could not be selected randomly, it has a quasi-experimental design. The study was conducted in three phases: pre-test, intervention, and post-test. Some of the mothers who participated in the pre-test phase were excluded because they lost their children between the pre-test and post-test phases, were transferred to another hospital for bone marrow transplantation, completed treatment, or did not want to participate in the post-test phase. Of the remaining 12 mothers, five were included in the experimental group and seven in the control group. An eight-session social work intervention was carried out for the experimental group, while no intervention plan was applied to the control group. In the pre-test and post-test phases of the study, the "Caregiver Burden Scale for Family Caregivers of Children with Cancer" was used to determine the mothers' level of caregiving burden. Based on the mothers' scores, their caregiving burden levels were found to be in the mild to moderate range and in the moderate to severe range. The intervention phase of the study was designed and implemented using the principles and techniques of solution-focused brief therapy. Upon reaching the post-test phase, the relevant scale was reapplied to all participants, without distinguishing between the experimental and control groups; after the completion of the post-tests, the data analysis phase was initiated. During the analysis phase, the pre-test and post-test total scores for the experimental and control groups, as well as the total scores for the scale's subscales, were compared using a dependent groups t-test. An independent groups t-test was used to compare the scale subscale scores between the pre-test and post-test according to the participant group. Furthermore, an independent groups t-test was used to determine how the participants' pre-test and post test total scores and subscale scores differed according to the participant group. Looking at the results of the study, a significant difference was found between the pre-test and post-test total scores of the experimental group. In terms of the scale subscales, improvements were observed in the emotional burden subscale of the experimental group. In the analyses conducted for the control group, no significant difference was found. In addition, analyses conducted according to participant group showed significant differences in the sociocultural and economic burden subdimensions in the pre-tests and in the emotional and mental burden subdimensions in the post-tests. These results of the study show that the eight-session social work intervention process carried out for the experimental group achieved its goal. The findings revealed that mothers whose children had been diagnosed with cancer experienced a care burden and that this burden could be alleviated through the social work interventions carried out.