The utilization and efficiency of the informal caregivers' coping strategies.

This study highlights the coping strategies used by informal caregivers whose husbands live with cancer. It also aims at measuring the efficiency of the selected strategies. The convenience sample was composed of 30 informal caregivers. The results indicate that informal caregivers primarily use support, optimism, independence, and facing of the situation. In general, the categories of coping strategies most often used by informal caregivers are considered by them to be the most efficient. The results of the study encourage nurses to identify more regularly the coping strategies used by informal caregivers; to recognize their efficiency and implement interventions likely to improve the informal caregivers' stress management.