The Relationship between Strain and Burden among Caregivers of Cancer Survivors

Caregivers play an imperative role in supporting people with cancer at each stage of the illness trajectory. Providing care to cancer survivors may lead to many negative impediments in all aspects of caregiver’s life because it’s inherently stressful causes strain and burden in their life. Materials and methods: A descriptive co-relational study was used to find the strain and burden among cancer survivors. The caregiver’s strain was assessed by using caregiver’s strain index (13 item) and burden was evaluated by Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), a 22 questionnaire was used to collect the data from the caregivers through the structured interview scheduled. Results: Regarding the caregiver’s strain, the majority (78%) had severe strain, remaining 22% had moderate strain and none of them had mild level of strain. Whereas regarding the burden, the majority (80%) had moderate to severe burden, remaining 20% had severe burden and none of them had little or mild burden. The Pearson correlation coefficient value was r = 0.58 (P=0.001***). It shows that, when the caregiver’s level of strain increases the burden level also increases. Conclusion: The family caregivers need a unique attention regarding the physical and psychological issues and their concerns in order to improve the quality of life of caregivers and as well as cancer survivors.