Death anxiety among caregivers of patients with advanced cancer: a cross-sectional survey.

PURPOSE

This study aimed to investigate death anxiety (DA) in caregivers of patients with advanced cancer and identify associated factors in the context of Chinese culture.

METHODS

Caregivers (N = 588) of advanced cancer patients in a tertiary cancer hospital completed anonymous questionnaire surveys. Measures included the Chinese version of the Templer Death Anxiety Scale (C-T-DAS), the Quality-of-Life Scale, the State-Trait Anxiety Scale, and the Social Support Rating Scale. Data were analyzed in SPSS (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA) using descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation test, and linear regression.

RESULTS

Respondents returned 588 (93.03%) of the 632 questionnaires. The total C-T-DAS score was 7.92 ± 2.68 points. The top-scoring dimension was "Stress and pain" (3.19 ± 1.29 points), followed by "Emotion" (2.28 ± 1.31 points) and "Cognition" (1.40 ± 0.94 points). In contrast, the lowest-scoring dimension was "Time" (1.06 ± 0.77 points). Factors associated with DA (R = 0.274, F = 13.348, p < 0.001) included quality of life (QoL), trait anxious personality, social support, caregiver length of care, caregiver gender, and patients' level of activities of daily living (ADL).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results demonstrated high levels of DA in caregivers of patients with advanced cancer. Generally, female caregivers and those with low social support had high DA. Caregivers caring for patients with low ADL levels or with a low QoL and trait anxious personality reported high DA. Certain associated factors help to reduce caregivers DA. Social interventions are recommended to improve the end-of-life transition and trait anxious personality as well as quality of life for caregivers.