The primary aim of this project is to describe the experience and support needs of older family caregivers caring for a relative with advanced cancer at the end of life.
Brief background/context
Family members provide vital support for partners and others at the end of life, and play a key role in enabling people to die in the place of their choice. For people with cancer, such care often takes place in older age. As yet, however, little is known about older family carers' experiences of providing end of life care, their support needs, and the role of different care strategies. Self-management approaches (e.g. peer education and use of web-based resources) are beginning to be recognised in cancer support and advance end of life care planning, but the scope and application of these for older people with end of life care responsibilities for others have yet to be investigated.
Main question(s)
Primary aim: To describe the experience and support needs of older family caregivers caring for a relative with advanced cancer at the end of life.
Secondary aim: To evaluate the role of current service provision in supporting family members providing end of life care; to determine the feasibility of working with older family caregivers to develop self-management and peer support strategies for end of life care.
Methodology
Qualitative study with structured measure of service use. Ethnographic methods will be used to describe experience from the participants' viewpoint. Settings are likely to include participants' homes, other informal care environments, and hospice day care.
Christopher Bailey
Dimbleby Cancer Care Research Fund 2009