1. Caregiver Sleep and Patient Neutrophil Engraftment in Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant: A Secondary Analysis
- Author
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Timothy S. Sannes, Benjamin Brewer, Crystal Natvig, Susan K. Mikulich-Gilbertson, Mark L. Laudenslager, and Teresa L. Simoneau
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Neutrophils ,Article ,Time-to-Treatment ,Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Internal medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,Interpersonal Relations ,Aged ,Neutrophil Engraftment ,Oncology (nursing) ,business.industry ,Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation ,Actigraphy ,Middle Aged ,Transplantation ,Distress ,Oncology ,Caregivers ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Female ,Sleep (system call) ,Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant ,Sleep onset ,business ,Sleep ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Stress, Psychological - Abstract
BACKGROUND Caregiving for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (Allo-HSCT) patients can be significantly burdensome. Caregiver well-being often mirrors patients' suffering. However, to our knowledge, this dyadic relationship has not been linked to patient outcome. OBJECTIVE Caregiver's objective and subjective sleep and overall distress before transplantation were hypothesized to be related to patient's time to engraftment in secondary analyses. METHODS Dyads (N = 124) were Allo-HSCT patients (mean [SD] age, 49.2 [12.7] years) and their caregivers (mean [SD] age, 52.7 [12.3] years). Caregiver's subjective sleep quality was measured via the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, objective sleep was measured by actigraphy, and distress was measured by combining validated psychological measures. RESULTS Both caregiver reports of worse sleep (β = .22; P < .05) and objective measurement of caregiver sleep patterns (higher sleep efficiency; less time awake after sleep onset) collected before engraftment significantly predicted shorter time to patient engraftment (β values = -.34 and .29, respectively; P values < .05). Caregiver distress was unrelated to engraftment (β = .14; P = .22). CONCLUSIONS Despite limitations in available patient data, these findings appear to link caregiver well-being to patient outcome. This underscores the interrelatedness of the patient-caregiver dyad in Allo-HSCT. Future research should examine psychological and biomedical mediators. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Given that caregiver well-being during the peritransplantation period was associated with patient outcome in this study, such findings highlight the need to address caregiver and patient well-being during Allo-HSCT. There may be potential to improve patient outcome by focusing on the caregiver, which nursing staff is well positioned to monitor.
- Published
- 2016