Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre, Jalan Yaacob Latif, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Compr Psychiatry. 2014 Jan;55 Suppl 1:S52-9. doi: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2013.03.003. Epub 2013 May 22.
The period of the cancer patients undergoing treatment is also the most stressful time for their family caregivers. This study aimed to determine the rates of major depressive disorder and dysthymia; and their associated factors in the caregivers during this time.
One hundred and thirty caregiver-patient dyads attending the oncology centre for breast cancer treatment participated in this cross-sectional study. While the data on the patients' socio-demographic and illness characteristics were obtained from their medical record, the caregivers completed three self-report measures: 1) socio-demography and the caregiving factor questionnaire, 2) Multi-dimensional Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) and 3) Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Subsequently, those with "probable depression" identified from the DASS-21 score were interviewed using The Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) to obtain the diagnoses of depressive disorders.
Twenty-three of the 130 caregivers (17.69%) were diagnosed to have depressive disorders, where 12.31% (n=16) had major depressive disorder and 5.38% (n=7) had dysthymic disorder. Factors associated with depression include ethnicity, duration of caregiving, the patients' functional status and the caregivers' education level. Logistic regression analysis showed that the patients' functional status (p<0.05, OR=0.23, CI=0.06-0.86) and the caregivers' education level (p<0.05, CI=9.30, CI=1.82-47.57) were significantly associated with depression in the caregivers attending to breast cancer patients on oncology treatment.
A significant proportion of family caregivers were clinically depressed while caring for their loved ones. Depression in this population is a complex interplay between the patients' factors and the caregivers' factors.
癌症患者接受治疗的时期也是其家庭照顾者压力最大的时期。本研究旨在确定在此期间照顾者中重度抑郁症和恶劣心境障碍的发生率及其相关因素。
本横断面研究纳入了 130 对正在肿瘤中心接受乳腺癌治疗的患者-照顾者。患者的社会人口学和疾病特征数据来自其病历，而照顾者则完成了三项自我报告的测量：1）社会人口学和照顾者因素问卷，2）多维感知社会支持量表（MSPSS），3）抑郁、焦虑和压力量表（DASS-21）。随后，根据 DASS-21 评分确定患有“可能的抑郁症”的照顾者，使用 Mini-国际神经精神访谈（MINI）对其进行访谈，以获得抑郁症的诊断。
130 名照顾者中有 23 名（17.69%）被诊断患有抑郁症，其中 12.31%（n=16）患有重度抑郁症，5.38%（n=7）患有恶劣心境障碍。与抑郁相关的因素包括种族、照顾时间、患者的功能状态和照顾者的教育程度。逻辑回归分析显示，患者的功能状态（p<0.05，OR=0.23，CI=0.06-0.86）和照顾者的教育程度（p<0.05，CI=9.30，CI=1.82-47.57）与接受肿瘤治疗的乳腺癌患者的照顾者的抑郁显著相关。
在照顾癌症患者时，相当一部分家庭照顾者存在临床抑郁。该人群的抑郁是患者因素和照顾者因素之间复杂相互作用的结果。
