Department of Cancer Prevention and Control, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, New York, USA.
Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
Psychooncology. 2023 Mar;32(3):408-417. doi: 10.1002/pon.6087. Epub 2023 Jan 11.
We examined the social network support, composition, and structure of pediatric cancer caregivers.
We used a self-report survey to collect egocentric social network data from 107 caregivers of pediatric cancer patients and calculated descriptive statistics to examine cancer-related support network composition, function, and structure. We then ran logistic regressions to examine the relationships between network characteristics and overall satisfaction with social support.
Family members were the most common source of emotional support and logistical support, and health care providers were the most common source of informational support. Participants perceived the "most helpful" forms of support as being: (1) emotional support from family and health care providers; (2) informational support from health care providers and other cancer caregivers; and (3) logistical support from family. Overall, caregivers wished that 9.8% of their network ties had provided more support, with family members being the most common alter type to disappoint caregivers and offer less support than needed/expected. Caregivers who reported higher network disappointment (having network members who offered less support than needed/expected) were significantly less satisfied with emotional support than those with lower network disappointment (Odds Ratio = 0.18, p = 0.02), and caregivers with higher network disappointment were significantly less satisfied with logistical support compared to those with lower network disappointment (Odds Ratio = 0.14, p = 0.01).
Our results show differences in the nature of social support provided by different types of network members. These findings have implications for tailoring social network interventions to improve caregiver and family outcomes.
我们研究了儿科癌症照顾者的社会网络支持、组成和结构。
我们使用自我报告调查从 107 名儿科癌症患者的照顾者那里收集了以自我为中心的社会网络数据，并计算了描述性统计数据来检查癌症相关支持网络的组成、功能和结构。然后，我们进行了逻辑回归分析，以检查网络特征与对社会支持的总体满意度之间的关系。
家庭成员是情感支持和后勤支持最常见的来源，医疗保健提供者是信息支持最常见的来源。参与者认为“最有帮助”的支持形式是：（1）来自家庭成员和医疗保健提供者的情感支持；（2）来自医疗保健提供者和其他癌症照顾者的信息支持；（3）来自家庭成员的后勤支持。总体而言，照顾者希望他们网络关系中的 9.8%能提供更多的支持，而家庭成员是最常见的让照顾者失望并提供的支持少于所需/期望的改变类型。报告网络失望程度较高（有网络成员提供的支持少于所需/期望）的照顾者在情感支持方面的满意度明显低于失望程度较低的照顾者（优势比=0.18，p=0.02），而网络失望程度较高的照顾者在后勤支持方面的满意度明显低于失望程度较低的照顾者（优势比=0.14，p=0.01）。
我们的研究结果表明，不同类型的网络成员提供的社会支持性质存在差异。这些发现对于量身定制社会网络干预措施以改善照顾者和家庭的结果具有重要意义。
