Stressors and Coping Strategies among Family Caregivers Having Children with Lymphoma at Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357
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- Category: Vol. 83, March 2015
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Stressors and Coping Strategies among Family Caregivers Having Children with Lymphoma at Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357, RASHA A. ABDEL-RAHMAN, GEHAN M. ISMAIL, HANY A. SAYED and HEBA M. SHARAA
Abstract
Background: The diagnosis of cancer in children and adolescents is a life-altering event for them as well as their family caregivers. Lymphoma is the third most common childhood cancer.
Aim of this Study: Was to assess the stressors and coping strategies among family caregivers having children with lymphoma. A descriptive exploratory research design was utilized in this study.
Setting: The study was conducted at Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357, Cairo Governorate. A convenient sample of 100 family Caregivers having children with non Hodgkin’s lymphomas were included in the study. Three tools were utilized in this study. I: Sociodemographic questionnaire; divided into three parts (A) Demographic characteristic of the child with non Hodgkin’s lymphoma, (B) Demographic characteristic of the caregivers, (C) Disease information. II: Stressors scale; this scale was divided into four subscales (physical, psychological, social, and environmental stressors), III: Coping process scale; the scale consisted of 42 items related to emotional and problem focused coping.
Results: Indicated that, the highest mean scores of stressors among family caregivers were related to psychological stressors and the highest mean scores were related to emotional focused coping that is commonly used by family caregivers. A highly statistically significant correlation was found between the caregiver’s total emotional focused coping scores and their total problem focused coping scores, also a highly statistically significant negative correlation was found between the family caregiver’s total stressor scores and their total coping scores. The study concluded that, the majority of the family caregivers were suffering from psychological stressors while, the minority were suffering from physical stressors. For coping strategies used by family caregivers to overcome these stressors, the majority of family caregivers used emotional focused coping than problem focused coping. It is recommended to perform health education program for family caregivers having children with lymphoma to raise their awareness about the disease and the appropriate use of coping strategies to overcome their stressors.