OBJECTIVES

To identify the factors associated with caregiver burden in Chinese lung cancer families and to detect whether family resilience mediates the effect of perceived social support on caregiver burden.

DATA SOURCES

From October 2021 to March 2022, a total of 213 family caregivers of patients with lung cancer from a public hospital in Sichuan Province, China, completed the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), the Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS), and the Family Resilience Assessment Scale (FRAS). The Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis H test were used to identify the influencing factors of family caregiver burden, and the bootstrapping method was conducted to detect the mediating role of family resilience.

CONCLUSION

In this study, family caregiver burden could be influenced by caregiver age, caregivers' relationships with patients, and patients' self-care degree; family resilience was found to mediate the relationship between caregivers' perceived social support and caregiver burden.

IMPLICATION FOR NURSING PRACTICE

Our study manifested that factor from both the patients' and caregivers' sides could influence caregiver burden of lung cancer family caregivers. The results provide further evidence that lung cancer care should be family-centered, and relevant family-supportive systems should be further developed in this field.