فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

Background: In recent years, the caregiving responsibilities of cancer patients’ family members have increased dramatically. Reducingcaregiver strain and burden supports the mission of professional nursing.Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine and compare the caregiver strain index scores of breast cancer informal caregivers,before and after a patient-caregiver educational and telephone follow-up program.PatientsandMethods: This is an experimental two-group design study. Participants were recruited from an outpatient chemotherapyunit of the largest hematology and oncology research center in Northwest Iran. Thirty patient-caregiver pairs were randomlyallocated to intervention and control groups. The intervention group received 2 face-to-face education sessions at bedside and 4subsequent telephone follow-up sessions. The control group received routine care. Pre and post tests were administered in bothgroups pre and post intervention. To analyze the data, SPSS (13th version) software was used.Results: The caregiver strain index decreased significantly in the intervention group after the patient-caregiver education andfollow-up (P < 0.001), while the control group’s scores did not change (P = 0.04).Conclusions: It appears that the patient-caregiver education and follow-up program had a beneficial effect on the caregiver strainindex compared to the usual care.