Paying attention to relatives of Cancer Patients: What Can we Learn from their Online Writings?

When someone is diagnosed with cancer, their relatives are also confronted with the consequences of the disease. This applies not only to partners and children, and also to friends and colleagues. Caring for the patient can become a heavy burden on the shoulders of close relatives. In the literature, this is referred to as the caregiver burden [1 –3]. Relatives are mainly preoccupied with the patient’s needs [4], which they tend to prioritise over their own [2,4]. They are often reticent in asking for help for themselves and tend to neglect their own well-being [2,5].

Source: Patient Education and Counseling - November 10, 2018 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Mies C. van Eenbergen, Hanneke van Engelen, Nicole P.M. Ezendam, Lonneke V. van de Poll-Franse, Kiek Tates, Emiel J. Krahmer Source Type: research