Assessment of Socioeconomic and Psychological Factors Predicting Health-Related Quality of Life among Primary Caregivers of Cancer Patients in Kakamega County

Abstract

Context: Primary caregivers of cancer patients often suffer from impaired Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) due to stress arising from the responsibility of caregiving. Most studies conducted in Western populations have shown that increased caregiving burden was related to decreased mental and physical health and premature mortality among family caregivers. Therefore, the findings of those studies may not be directly applicable to the Kenyan population, especially Western Kenya, which has a different socio-cultural and ethnic background.

Aim: This study sought to determine socioeconomic and psychological factors predicting the health-related quality of life among primary caregivers of cancer patients in Kakamega County.

Methods: This was an institutional-based cross-sectional analytical study design. Kakamega County Referral Hospital was purposively sampled as it has a hospital with a western region cancer center. The sampling unit was caregivers of cancer patients seen in the hospital. The caregivers were systematically and randomly sampled from a list drawn from the Cancer Centre register of cancer patients, where the caregivers are captured as their treatment supporters, and each cancer patient is expected to have a caregiver. The sample size was 422 primary caregivers after calculation. The data collection tool was contracted from a QOL questionnaire, such as WHOQoL-BREF, developed to measure both objective and subjective dimensions of QOL, Personal Wellbeing scale, Herth Hope Index, and PHQ9/GAD-7 to assess psychological-related factors, which are more sensitive and have wider applicability.

Results: Socioeconomic factors such as gender (p=0.007), type of area of residence (p=0.004), income in KSh (p=0.01), and number of rooms (p=0.0005) are significantly associated with perceived quality of life. Psychological-related factors like depression (p=0.001) and anxiety (p=0.002) are significantly associated with perceived quality of life.  

Conclusion: The study concluded that socioeconomic and psychological factors of primary caregivers of cancer patients can predict the health-related quality of life of those caregivers. The study recommends that financial charges for cancer management be subsided as this could relieve caregivers' financial burden. Other family members should support primary caregivers financially and psychologically to ease the burden of the primary caregiver. Psychosocial support group networks should be established for caregivers through multiple communication channels, thereby reducing the mental and psychological burden experienced by caregivers.