School of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia.
Palliative Care Unit, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Palliat Med. 2020 Jan;34(1):145-154. doi: 10.1177/0269216319880766. Epub 2019 Oct 29.
Determining the effect of caregiving and bereavement remains a challenge. To date, no study has employed a comparison group to investigate caregivers' grief, quality of life and general health in relation to non-caregivers.
We aimed to determine how caregivers' grief, quality of life and general health changed following death compared to non-caregivers and whether pre-death grief predicted these outcomes.
A prospective, longitudinal study of family caregivers and a comparison group matched for age, gender and postcode was conducted. All participants completed questionnaires at four points - once pre-death and three times post-death (3-4 months, 6-7 months and 9-10 months).
SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Participants ( = 70) were family caregivers of persons receiving palliative care, mostly for cancer, recruited from three palliative care providers in Western Australia and matched comparisons recruited from advertisements.
There were significant differences between the caregivers' and comparisons' grief, general health and quality of life at pre-death, 3-4 months and 6-7 months post-death, but not at 9-10 months post-death. The rate of progression in these constructs following death was independent from the intensity of pre-death grief. However, caregiver prolonged grief score significantly predicted prolonged grief score at 6-7 and 9-10 months post-death.
It took 9-10 months for the caregivers' grief, general health and quality of life to correspond to the comparison group. These findings present an opportunity for palliative care research and practice to consider how best to support the majority of caregivers without grief complications so that their pre- and post-death support needs are realised.
确定照料者和丧亲者的影响仍然是一个挑战。迄今为止，尚无研究采用对照组来调查照料者的悲伤、生活质量和一般健康状况与非照料者的关系。
我们旨在确定照料者在亲人去世后的悲伤、生活质量和一般健康状况与非照料者相比如何变化，以及去世前的悲伤是否预示着这些结果。
对家庭照料者和按年龄、性别和邮政编码匹配的对照组进行前瞻性、纵向研究。所有参与者在四个时间点完成问卷 - 一次在死亡前，三次在死亡后（3-4 个月、6-7 个月和 9-10 个月）。
地点/参与者：参与者（n=70）是接受姑息治疗的患者的家庭照料者，主要是癌症患者，从西澳大利亚的三家姑息治疗提供者招募，并从广告中招募了匹配的对照者。
在死亡前、3-4 个月和 6-7 个月后，照料者和对照组在悲伤、一般健康和生活质量方面存在显著差异，但在 9-10 个月后没有差异。这些结构在死亡后的进展速度与死亡前悲伤的强度无关。然而，照料者的延长悲伤评分显著预测了 6-7 个月和 9-10 个月后的延长悲伤评分。
照料者的悲伤、一般健康和生活质量需要 9-10 个月才能与对照组相匹配。这些发现为姑息治疗研究和实践提供了一个机会，以考虑如何最好地支持大多数没有悲伤并发症的照料者，以便实现他们在死亡前后的支持需求。
