Effectiveness of palliative care consultation service on caregiver burden over time between terminally ill cancer and no
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Effectiveness of palliative care consultation service on caregiver burden over time between terminally ill cancer and non-cancer family caregivers Kohei Kajiwara 1
&
Jun Kako 2 & Masamitsu Kobayashi 3 & Yasufumi Oosono 3 & Hiroko Noto 4
Received: 22 April 2020 / Accepted: 6 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
To the editor, We read with interest the recently published article titled, “Effectiveness of palliative care consultation service on caregiver burden over time between terminally ill cancer and noncancer family caregivers” by Wu et al. [1]. In this article, the authors concluded that palliative care consultation service can ameliorate the family caregiver burden (FCB) among both cancer family caregivers (CFC) and non-cancer family caregivers (NCFC) [1]. Moreover, the authors showed that palliative care consultation service should be used for reducing the caregiver burden of the family caregivers of terminally ill patients [1]. We would like to present some points of discussion regarding their conclusions. Wu et al. indicated that no significant difference was found on comparison of the family caregiver burden between CFC and NCFC [1]. A previous study on cancer caregivers has reported that caregiver burden can be significantly predicted by the stage of cancer of the patients [2]. We think that the stage of cancer and disease diagnosis in patients may influence family caregiver burden. Therefore, we would like to know certain details such as the type of diagnosis and stage of cancer of the patients included by Wu et al. in their study.
* Kohei Kajiwara [email protected]
Wu et al. reported that the generalized estimating equation (GEE) model of family caregiver burden (FCB) indicated that gender and relationship with patients did not have a statistically significant effect on FCB [1]. Previous research has suggested that male gender-role norm was associated with a higher caregiver burden [3]. Another study has pointed out that positive subjective appraisal of dementia caregiving may be related to the relationship with patients because of the traditional norms in Japan [4]. In particular, the authors indicated different results for positive appraisal between spouses and daughters-in-law [4]. Furthermore, Swinkels et al. showed that women experience greater partner caregiver burden than men, which may be associated with women experiencing more secondary stressors such as relationship and financial problems, and problems combining different tasks [5]. The authors also pointed out that the family institution was deeply entrenched in Taiwanese society [1]. Another research study on dementia showed that Taiwanese caregivers had a higher caregiver burden reported as a factor of “impact on caregiver’s life” whereas Japanese caregivers had a higher factor of dependency than Taiwanese caregivers [6]. We agree with this point. Therefore, we believe that interventions for caregiver burden should consider the caregiver relationship with the patient in
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