Caregiver Burden, Caregiver Burnout, Caregiver Stress Syndrome
Conditions
Keywords
Caregiver, Caregiver Stress Syndrome, Caregiver Burden, Caregiver Burnout, Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy, 23-376
Brief summary
Participants will complete 1 set of questionnaires about 2 weeks before beginning their Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy for Caregivers/MCP-C or standard Supportive Psychotherapy for Caregivers/SP-C sessions. These questionnaires will ask about participants' sense of meaning and purpose in life, spiritual well-being, depression and/or anxiety, and social support. Participants will then be assigned to receive either MCP-C or SP-C for 7 sessions. Participants will complete additional sets of questionnaires about 2 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months after their last session of MCP-C or SP-C. It will take between 35 and 50 minutes to complete each set of questionnaires. After participants complete the MCP-C or SP-C sessions and all 4 sets of questionnaires, their participation in this study will end. If participants decide not to complete all 7 sessions, they may still choose to complete the questionnaires. Participants may remain in the study and continue to receive all 7 sessions of MCP-C or SP-C even if their loved one passes away.
Interventions
MCP-C is a stakeholder-informed, innovative, manualized intervention designed to assist caregivers to connect to a sense of meaning and purpose in life, despite the challenges of caregiving.
Standard of care supportive psychotherapy
Sponsors
Study design
Eligibility
Inclusion criteria
* Age 18 or over; * As per self-report, a current caregiver to a patient with Stage III or IV solid tumor cancer currently receiving medical care of any kind (e.g., curative, palliative); * Experiences distress as evidenced by a score of 4 or greater on the Distress Thermometer (DT) and an indication that this distress is associated with caregiving; * As per self-report, can read and understand English; * As per self-report, residing in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or Florida, or have the ability to complete sessions while complying with current telehealth regulations.
Exclusion criteria
* Participant does not have a reasonable understanding of the study activities by the judgment of the consenting professional; * Engagement in regular individual psychotherapeutic support that the participant is unable or unwilling to put on hold for the course of treatment.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants with improved primary outcomes | Up to 1 year | Evaluate the efficacy of MCP-C versus SP-C in improving primary outcomes (i.e., sense of meaning in life, spiritual well-being) immediately post-treatment and explore maintenance in gains up to 1 year. |
| Life Attitude Profile-Revised (LAP-R) | Up to 1 year | Life Attitude Profile-Revised (LAP-R) - used to measure sense of meaning in life. The LAP-R is a 48-item instrument. Each item is rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." Full scale ranges from 30 to 210 with a higher score indicating a greater sense of meaning in life and a more positive attitude towards life. |
| FACIT Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) | Up to 1 year | The Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) - used to measure spiritual well-being. The SWBS is a 12-item instrument. Each item is scored from 1 to 5. Negatively worded items are reverse scored. The measure generates two sub-scales: Faith/Spirituality (0-16) and Meaning/Peace (0-32). Full scale ranges from 0 to 48. Higher scores indicate a greater sense of spiritual well-being. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) | Up to 1 year | Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) - measures anxiety and depression. 14-items scale with responses scored from 0-3, scores for each subscale from 0 (normal) to 21 (severe symptoms). Scores for the entire scale is 0 to 42, with higher score indicating poorer health outcome. |
| Benefit Finding Scale (BFS) | Up to 1 year | Benefit Finding Scale (BFS) - measures benefit finding. The BFS is a 17-item instrument. Each item is scored from 1-5 (not at all, a little bit, somewhat, quite a bit, or very much). Full scale ranges from 17 to 85, with higher scores indicating greater benefit finding. |
| Caregiver Reaction Assessment (CRA) | Up to 1 year | Caregiver Reaction Assessment (CRA) - measures caregiver burden. The CRA is a 24-item instrument. Full scale ranges from 24 to 120, with higher scores indicating greater caregiving burden |
| Duke-UNC Functional Social Support Questionnaire (FSSQ) | Up to 1 year | Duke-UNC Functional Social Support Questionnaire (FSSQ) - measures social support. The FSSQ is an 8-item instrument. Each item is scored on a scale of 5-1 where 5=as much as I would like; 4=almost as much as I would like; 3=some, but would like more; 2=less than i would like, and 1=much less than I would like. Full scale ranges from 0 to 44 with higher scores indicating a higher degree of satisfaction related to social support. |
Countries
United States
Contacts
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai