Investigation of quality of life and care burden of family members caring for child cancer patients

This research is a descriptive study conducted with parents of children receiving cancer treatment in order to evaluate the care burden and quality of life of caregivers of child patients with cancer. The research was conducted with the parents of patients who applied to the Pediatric Oncology Polyclinic of Gaziantep Şahinbey Research and Application Hospital and were treated at the Pediatric Hematology Oncology Clinic between September 15, 2021 and January 30, 2022. The sample of the study was composed of the parents of 200 child patients who met the inclusion criteria. The data of the study were collected using the Descriptive Information Form and the Quality of Life Scale, Family Version and Caregiving Burden Scale developed for cancer patients. All data obtained were evaluated with IBM SPSS for windows 23.0 Newyork statistical package program. Descriptive statistics are shown as number percentage, mean, standard deviation, median and interquartilerange (IQR). Normal distribution analysis was evaluated with the Kolmogrov-Smirnov test. Considering their suitability for normal distribution, the relationship between the scale score averages was evaluated with the Spearman Correlation Test. Independent Sample t Test and Man Whitney U test were used to compare binary categorical variables and scale score averages. One-way analysis of variance, Bonferroni Post Hoc Test and Kruskall Wallis Test were used to compare scales with categorical variables with more than two groups. Statistical significance level was accepted as p<0.05. The value of the Care Burden scale in our study was found to be 54.73, in the medium range. The value of the Quality of Life scale in our study was found to be in the low range of 128.5. As a result of the correlation analysis conducted to examine the relationship between the parents' Care Burden Scale and the Quality of Life Scale and their sub-dimensions, a statistically significant negative relationship was found between the parents' Care Burden Scale total score average and the Quality of Life Scale total score average (p=0.00).