Search

Family and friend caregivers play critical roles in ensuring that persons with serious illness receive high-quality care, and their responsibilities often increase as patients transition from receiving solely curative-focused care to primarily palliative-focused care. Integrating family caregivers into the health care team and supporting them in their role has significant benefits for family caregivers, patients, health care systems, communities, and society. Palliative care clinicians across all disciplines are uniquely suited to provide necessary training and support to family caregivers as they navigate the demands of their role. Here, we contend that providing comprehensive palliative care includes addressing the needs of family caregivers and provide ten tips and practical guidance to assist palliative care clinicians to support family caregivers. Engaging family caregivers as partners in care will ultimately allow palliative care clinicians to deliver the highest quality patient care and ensure the best possible outcomes for families facing serious illnesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Distress screening is standard practice among oncology patients, yet few routine distress screening programs exist for cancer caregivers. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of Cancer Support Source‐CaregiverTM (CSS‐CG, 33‐item), an electronic distress screening and automated referral program with a consultation (S + C) to improve caregiver unmet needs, quality of life, anxiety, depression, and distress relative to Enhanced Usual Care (EUC; access to educational materials). Method: 150 caregivers of patients with varying sites/stages of cancer were randomized to S + C or EUC and completed assessments at baseline, 3‐months post‐baseline, and 6‐months post‐baseline. A subset of participants (n = 10) completed in‐depth qualitative interviews. Results: S + C was feasible: among 75 caregivers randomized to S + C, 66 (88%) completed CSS‐CG and consultation. Top concerns reported were: (1) patient's pain and/or physical discomfort; (2) patient's cancer progressing/recurring; and (3) feeling nervous or afraid. Differences between groups in improvements on outcomes by T2 and T3 were modest (ds < 0.53) in favor of S + C. Qualitative data underscored the helpfulness of S + C in connecting caregivers to support and helping them feel cared for and integrated into cancer care. Conclusions: S + C is feasible, acceptable, and yields more positive impact on emotional well‐being than usual care. Future studies will examine programmatic impact among caregivers experiencing higher acuity of needs, and benefits of earlier integration of S + C on caregiver, patient, and healthcare system outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]